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Articles

From embodiment to emplacement: Toward understanding occupation as body-mind-environment

ORCID Icon, ORCID Icon, ORCID Icon & ORCID Icon
Pages 111-126 | Received 09 Aug 2021, Accepted 11 Dec 2021, Published online: 08 Feb 2022
 

ABSTRACT

Participation in occupation is an integrated and holistic mind/body experience. However, research and theory development on human action and occupational participation tend to be limited by mind/body dualisms which separate the mind from the body when studying and conceptualizing human action. The ontological supremacy of the mind over the body has led to obfuscation of the body’s role in occupation. The purpose of this paper is to provide a broad overview of contemporary research on embodiment and to highlight the importance of the body in the performance of meaningful occupation. We present various perspectives and conceptual framings of embodiment using research from disciplines such as occupational science, cognitive psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, social psychology, developmental psychology, humanistic geography, and performance studies. Due to the expansive and varied literature on embodiment, we do not attempt to summarize or synthesize disciplinary perspectives; rather, we aim to highlight different perspectives within and across different disciplines. We also present examples of various research methods for studying embodiment and occupation. Additionally, we discuss implications for how sensory processing has been conceptualized in occupational science and occupational therapy and its relation to embodiment. Our aim is to encourage occupational scientists to further incorporate research methods that attend to the body’s role in studies on occupation and to encourage scientists and practitioners to re-think widely accepted assumptions regarding sensory processing and mind/body dualisms.

参与生活活动是一种综合的、整体的身心体验。然而,有关人类行为和活动参与的研究及理论开发往往受到身心二元论的限制,这种二元论在研究人类行为并使其概念化时将心灵与身体分开。心灵高于身体的本体论,导致对身体在生活活动中的作用的含糊不清。本文的目的是对当代关于具体化的研究提供一个涵盖性的概述,并强调身体在进行有意义的生活活动时的重要性。我们运用来自诸如生活活动科学、认知心理学、人类学、神经科学、社会心理学、发展心理学、人文地理学和绩效研究等学科的研究,提出具体化的各种观点和概念框架。由于关于具体化的文献广泛而多样,我们不去试图总结或综合学科观点;相反,我们的目标是突出不同学科内部和跨学科的不同观点。我们还提供了用于研究具体化和生活活动的各种方法的示例。此外,我们讨论了感官处理在生活活动科学和生活活动治疗中的概念化以及它与具体化的关系。我们的目标是鼓励生活活动科学家在研究中进一步结合关注身体之作用的研究方法,并鼓励科学家和实际操作者重新思考被广泛接受的关于感觉处理和身心二元论的假设。

La participación ocupacional implica una experiencia integrada y holística de mente/cuerpo. Sin embargo, la investigación y el desarrollo de teorías sobre la acción humana y la participación ocupacional tienden a estar limitados por los dualismos mente/cuerpo que, al estudiar y conceptualizar la acción humana, separan la mente del cuerpo. La supremacía ontológica de la mente sobre el cuerpo ha llevado a oscurecer el papel del cuerpo en la ocupación. Este artículo se propuso ofrecer una amplia visión de la investigación contemporánea sobre la corporeidad, con la intención de destacar la importancia del cuerpo en el desempeño de ocupaciones significativas. Al respecto, presentamos diversas perspectivas y marcos conceptuales desde los que se aborda la corporeidad, utilizando investigaciones realizadas en disciplinas como la ciencia ocupacional, la psicología cognitiva, la antropología, la neurociencia, la psicología social, la psicología del desarrollo, la geografía humanista y los estudios sobre el rendimiento. Debido a la extensa y variada literatura existente sobre la corporeidad, no intentamos resumir o sintetizar las perspectivas disciplinarias; más bien, pretendemos subrayar las diferentes perspectivas dentro de las distintas disciplinas y entre ellas. Además, presentamos ejemplos de diversos métodos de investigación para estudiar la corporeidad y la ocupación. Asimismo, analizamos las implicaciones que conlleva la forma en que se ha conceptualizado el procesamiento sensorial en la ciencia y la terapia ocupacionales y su relación con la corporeidad. Nuestro objetivo es animar a los científicos ocupacionales a seguir incorporando métodos de investigación que incluyan el papel del cuerpo en los estudios sobre la ocupación, así como alentar a científicos y operadores a replantearse los supuestos ampliamente aceptados sobre el procesamiento sensorial y los dualismos mente/cuerpo.

Acknowledgement

We humbly give homage to the tribes who first inhabited North Carolina prior to white colonization. The Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation that resided in Chapel Hill, and the west and north west regions, before Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill were built. As well as the tribal communities that resided across all the ‘small’ and large towns of North Carolina prior to colonization: The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Sappony, Catawba, Tuscarora, Waccamaw Siouan, Lumbee, Coharie, Halawa-Saponi, Meherrin.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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