Editorial

Implicit to occupational scientists’ concern with the layers of shared and personal meanings that occupation holds, is the experience of doing. It is taken as given that each person’s experience of engaging in occupations, even those repeated on a daily basis, is unique and unrepeatable. Yet similarities are expected. There is sufficient commonality in the experiences of youths or people in advanced age, of people of one culture or another, to make it a sensible endeavour to seek out aspects of doing that are shared. Those commonalities of experience are a feature of this issue of the Journal of Occupational Science. Despite variations, the authors have sought to understand the experience of engaging in the mundane occupations of everyday life, from different vantage points; the experience of particular occupations; the shift in experience after harrowing disruptions to everyday life; and the means by which occupational experiences might be brought to light. Throughout the narrative, influential aspects of the environment are interwoven.

First up in this final issue for 2019, we are again honoured to feature the Ruth Zemke Lectureship in Occupational Science presented at the previous year’s meeting of the Society for the Study of Occupational Science: USA. Wendy Wood (2019), the 2018 Zemke lecturer, drew together findings from her unique contribution to occupational science research; studying the occupations of humans and other animals that cannot self-report their experience. Wood presented three narratives; of a chimpanzee living in captivity in the Los Angeles zoo, an old man living in a locked dementia unit, and a horse in a programme offering experiences of riding to older adults with dementia. Distilling her research down to these three stories, Wood reveals the interplay of environment, time, and occupation. Her acute observations of the “heres and nows” of everyday life invite us into, what she terms, occupationally enlivening experiences. Drawing on Dewey, Wood points to the tensions, suspense, flows, and perturbations that offer opportunities to have experiences, for as Dewey espoused, a situation that is complete in itself leaves nothing more to experience.

Widmark and Fristedt (2019) follow with their qualitative content analysis of adolescents’ daily occupations. Arguing that the categorisations of occupation commonly used in occupational science have no empirical basis for children and youths, they interviewed 12-15 year olds about their experiences of doing. The experience-based categories they derived encompass enjoyment and satisfaction, challenge and competence, deep engagement as well as boredom and tediousness, self-identification, changed perception of time, relaxation and recovery, and need, necessity, and neutrality. While further research with groups in other contexts and different age groups is required, this is a fresh and immediate perspective from which to appreciate younger people’s occupational engagement.

Lee (2019) also responds to critique of the overly narrow conceptions of occupation reported in occupational science literature, this time from a cultural perspective. Using an established scoping review methodology, he systematically examined the perspectives of Asian migrants to western countries and participants in occupations with Asian cultural origin, as published in English language occupational science and therapy journals. While the available literature is limited, just 26 articles, the evidence he assembled offers empirical support to previously voiced critique. The repeated charge of individualism in occupational science, for example, is challenged by occupations performed by Japanese people that enact generosity, deference, and extending hospitality through beautifully enacted performance. Other examples are the Japanese research participants who construct interdependence through shared occupations predicated on stoicism and effort, or prompt adjustment to changed social expectations, in alignment with the cultural valuing of conformity. The importance of seeking diverse experiences of occupation is thus richly illustrated.

Further extending established views of the experience of occupation, Dowers, White, Kingsley, and Swenson (2019) also conducted a scoping review, completing an inductive and deductive thematic analysis of 41 articles reporting the occupational experiences of transgender people. The findings were “doing difference”, which is concerned with gender expression and transition, “recognisably different”, which focuses on being the recipient of aggressive behaviours, and “responding to difference”, which captures a more hopeful perspective of adaptation and identity affirmation. This work continues a thread of discussion within occupational science, of resistance in the face of restrictive opportunities for identity formation and inclusion.

The two papers that follow report the findings of interpretive phenomenological analyses of the way particular occupations are experienced: creative writing (Rampley, Reynolds, & Cordingley, 2019) and volunteering in a charity shop (Jones & Reynolds, 2019). Applying the concepts of doing, being, belonging, and becoming, Rampley and colleagues revealed creative writing to be central to participants’ sense of self, with a level of compulsion to write experienced by most. Sensitivity to others’ evaluation, however, made them doubtful of the quality of their writing and wary of calling themselves writers. For the older participants in Jones and Reynolds’s study, being a volunteer was a source of support for managing transitions associated with aging. Nonetheless, the findings revealed perceived exploitation, with one of the younger participants volunteering as a condition for receiving a Jobseeker Allowance. While others were emphatic that they worked in a voluntary capacity because they wanted to, the possibility of state level coercion raises the issue of occupational injustice. While neither of these studies had large numbers of participants, the findings open new areas for discussion within the discipline: the impact of real or perceived criticism on people’s occupational performance and the impact of coercion on experiences of occupation.

Addressing experience from an interpersonal perspective, Wagman and Håkansson present a new angle on an often discussed concept; occupational balance. Again using a scoping review methodology, they sought out research using the keywords occupational balance, balance in everyday life, or life balance. Their rationale is important – the occupational pattern one person establishes to achieve occupational balance has the potential to positively or negatively influence other people’s opportunities to engage in occupation, potentially disrupting or making the achievement of occupational balance impossible for them. Finding little of significance in the literature, they too conclude that there remains much to research.

Shifting the focus to life experiences that impact the experience of subsequent occupations, Stewart, du Mont, and Polatajko (2019) report a narrative review of the impact of sexual assault on women’s occupational lives. Analysis of 26 articles revealed only partial understandings, with researchers’ primarily focusing on a narrow range of occupations (alcohol use, sexual activity) and only collecting data about frequency of engagement. Long lasting changes, and impact across the women’s repertoire of occupations were substantially lacking. The review thus brings into the view the critical need for occupation-focused studies with this and other vulnerable groups.

The final article for 2019 presents the results of a critical review of three participatory digital research approaches identified as having potential to advance transformative research with children and youth. The approaches are digital storytelling, participatory videos, and participatory geographic information systems. Being unfamiliar with any of these approaches, I was pleased to be introduced to them and to learn of the potential of all three to generate new insights into occupation as situated, and to address occupational injustices.

These rich discussions conclude JOS volume 26. Across the year’s offerings, the JOS Editorial Board are pleased to note the continuing diversity of topics investigated by occupational scientists internationally, while also observing a general shift towards socially important topics and increased attention paid to occupational justice. This is in part due to partnering with the progressive Occupational Science societies and groups active internationally, and to calling for papers from the World Federation of Occupational Therapists’ Congress in South Africa. There, as elsewhere, research into occupational justice issues and the environmental impacts of occupation is gaining strength.

We are proud to be the vehicle by which such ideas can reach an international audience of current and future occupational scientists, supported by ongoing work to both accept manuscripts in Spanish and translate key papers into Spanish and Portuguese. Over time, our intention is to expand to other languages, thus opening occupational science to a larger and larger audience. Our sincere thanks to Taylor and Francis for their ongoing support for this venture.

ORCID

Clare Hocking http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0364-5157