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This anthology collates 16 unique and powerful perspectives from occupational therapists around the globe, each highlighting the culture that they are a part of and how it informs their work and care. Ranging across almost every continent in the world including stories from Aotearoa to the Gaza Strip to Dhaka and beyond, Occupational Therapy Disruptors offers a decolonised re-examination of occupational therapy through a poignant, global lens.
Based on a series of interviews conducted by Sheela Roy Ivlev, each account provides candid and personal reflections and challenges found in occupational therapy in different cultural and political contexts and inspires occupational therapists to enrich their own practice with cultural awareness and reflexivity.
With reflection prompts and calls to action at the end of each chapter, this is an invaluable resource for occupational therapists looking to develop a more diverse, culturally-informed understanding of their practice.
Based on a series of interviews conducted by Sheela Roy Ivlev, each account provides candid and personal reflections and challenges found in occupational therapy in different cultural and political contexts and inspires occupational therapists to enrich their own practice with cultural awareness and reflexivity.
With reflection prompts and calls to action at the end of each chapter, this is an invaluable resource for occupational therapists looking to develop a more diverse, culturally-informed understanding of their practice.
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Reviews
It is essential that Indigenous people around the world take back their narrative and Sheela Ivlev provides a venue toward the process of decolonizing occupational therapy. Occupation means nothing without understanding the culture and even the complexity of the word occupation in various cultural contexts. Words do matter and the words need to be the words of each culture. Occupational therapy is at a crossroads in its development as to how viable and relevant it wants to be moving forward and leadership should read this book and have in depth conversations about the questions and issues it raises. I am so proud of Sheela Ivlev for doing this work with such passion.
Who is afraid of decoloniality? Who will be empowered by this book and who will feel threatened and bothered? Enveloping myriad global perspectives, 'Occupational Therapy Disruptors' goes beyond coloniality, to intentionally disrupt current OT discourses, epistemology and ontologies. Employing storytelling as a counterhegemonic methodology, Ivlev skilfully introduces ecologies of knowledge into the canon of OT knowledge. This volume will change the course of OT scholarship epistemologies and practice permanently.
First of its kind, this book is a must read for ALL occupational therapists as it flips the script and invites us to (un)learn from the voices that have long been dismissed and undervalued in our profession. Ivlev's analysis is refreshing and honest and should be centered in every OT curriculum as it challenges the dominant narratives (re)produced by ultra privileged global north perspectives that have been positioned as THE experts for far too long. This book makes space for multiple ways of understanding and doing occupational therapy.
Sheela provides a hands-on guide for navigating the hot-button issues related to occupational therapy and frameworks that so many people struggle to articulate, this book is a must-read.
Sheela Ivlev has more than proven she is one of the greatest occupational therapists. Now, with this masterpiece, Occupational Therapy Disruptors, she shines a light on many other occupational therapists around the world that are also disrupting the status quo and decolonizing the field of occupational therapy to improve both physical and mental health outcomes, often for those in underserved and overlooked communities. The reflections and suggestions presented allow readers to not only take in thought provoking ideas and discussion but also to take action toward much needed diversity, equity, inclusion, justice and accessibility work in this area.