The emergence of occupational science in non-English speaking countries is frequently hampered by diverse barriers to global collaboration, knowledge dissemination, and inclusion in international dialogue. Epistemological, cultural, and institutional resources may explain these barriers, yet these have not been explored within the discipline. This paper discusses three main issues and three priorities for action put forward by participants during sessions held at two separate, international occupational science conferences. The sessions aimed to engage the audience in critical reflexivity and dialogue around the challenges present when non-English speaking countries attempt to develop occupational science scholarship and possible ways to support global collaboration. To stimulate discussion, we used a participatory methodology, ‘Metaplan’. The sessions included a statements exercise, reflections presented by the authors, individual reflexivity, and small group debate. The findings are structured as a reflexive dialogue where participants’ voices, theory, and the authors’ reflections are interwoven to enrich discussion of the issues participants identified and priorities for action. This paper contributes to decolonizing the development of occupational science and promoting an international dialogue that is open to diverse worldviews, by drawing attention to the visible and invisible barriers that limit collaboration and inclusion of the diverse ways in which occupation is understood and enacted worldwide.

Occupational scientists claim that further development of the concept of occupational justice is needed to enact the discipline’s commitment to social transformation. We argue that immigrant women’s experiences of occupations in Spain can contribute to this dialogue. Although research on occupations after migration has expanded internationally, limited studies have adopted a critical stance towards health and occupation simultaneously. Thus, we propose that advancing understanding of immigrant women’s experiences of daily participation in occupations and identifying health/well-being mediators to generate actions to promote health from a critical perspective might advance the conceptualization of occupational justice. A participatory health research study informed by Epistemologies of the South was undertaken with six women from Latin America. Data were generated through group discussion, interviews, diaries and Metaplan. A critical narrative analysis and a participatory thematic analysis were performed. Immigrant women's daily life in Spain (shared trajectories and experiences, occupational struggles, and health and well-being mediators and consequences) and an Agenda for change set by the participants (Daily challenges to overcome and possible formula to improve daily living) are reported. Findings are aligned with previous research revealing similar threats to occupational rights, impact on health and the strategies used to navigate both. New insights from the findings expand occupational justice conceptualization, portraying how structural elements such as class, gender and ethnicity shape occupational opportunities which create daily injustices negotiated through occupations, namely occupational struggles. These occupational struggles impact both negatively and positively on well-being. A specific action agenda towards occupational justice is recommended by the participants.

In the context of a critical and transformational agenda, there is a need to discuss the relationship among social categories–including gender and occupation–in occupational therapy and occupational science-related research. This scoping review aimed to address how the concept of gender has been dealt with in scientific publications in order to provide a vision of how it has been used, defined, and explored throughout the history of this discipline and practice. Arksey and O’Malley’s ( 2005 ) scoping review methodology was used, as it allows for the synthesis of diverse qualitative data and facilitates the exploration of studies according to their relevance, paying attention to how they shape and inform a research corpus. Fifty-five articles were included in the analysis, leading to two main categories. The outcomes reveal how gender has been mainly associated, on the one hand, to a singular or gender binary category and, on the other, to a situated category that results in occupational opportunities. Additionally, the development of the concept of gender is introduced in association with the establishment of the discipline from a feminist and critical standpoint. The results clearly reveal the importance of introducing a critical perspective on the concept in order to clarify some of the strategies that can lead to both occupational possibilities and inequalities.

In Spain, most jobs available for Latin American immigrant women are in intimate labour (caregiving and domestic work). This work is usually performed under informal employment conditions. The objective of this study was to explain how the colonial logic mediates the experiences of Latin American women working in intimate labour in Spain, and the effects of such occupation on their health and wellbeing, using a decolonial theoretical framework. A multi-site secondary data analysis of qualitative data from four previous studies was performed utilizing 101 interviews with Latin American immigrant women working as caregivers in Spain. Three interwoven categories show how the dominant colonial logic in Spain creates low social status and precarious jobs, and naturalizes intimate labour as their métier while producing detrimental physical and psychosocial health consequences for these immigrant caregivers. The caregivers displayed several strategies to resist and navigate intimate labour and manage its negative impact on health. Respect and integration into the family for whom they work had a buffering effect, mediating the effects of working conditions on health and wellbeing. Based on our analysis, we suggest that employment, social, and health protection laws and strategies are needed to promote a positive working environment, and to reduce the impact of caregiving work for Latin American caregivers.

“Yo lo parí y él me dio la vida”: estudio de la transición ocupacional vinculada a la maternidad de dos mujeres con trastorno mental/“I gave birth to him and he gave me my life”: study of occupational transition linked to motherhood of two women with mental disorders

This paper reports on the collective ideas of the occupational scientists and therapists who attended the “Refugees – Addressing Key Social Issues” think tank at the Occupational Science Conference held in Hildesheim (2017). Forced migration is recognized as a prevalent issue in today’s society. Forced migrants face many occupational challenges, which are being exacerbated by restrictive migration policies. This paper outlines the discussions held during the think tank and presents an occupational perspective of forced migrants’ needs, followed by a desired vision of what an occupationally just world would look like for forced migrants, and future directions to guide occupation-based social transformation.