Engaging with occupational reconstructions: A perspective from the Global South

ABSTRACT The discipline of occupational science informs philosophy and theory in the profession of occupational therapy. It is therefore imperative that the discipline and profession develop a symbiotic relationship that is mutually responsive to the occupational engagement patterns of populations and groups within their respective contexts. Protest is a phenomenon with a long, violent history in South Africa. Protests that are characterised by violence and met with state-sanctioned violence have continued to occur across multiple sectors despite South Africa’s shift from an Apartheid to a Democratic state in 1994. It is of concern that both violence and protest are minimally explored within occupational science and occupational therapy, even though these two phenomena regularly co-occur, impacting the health and well-being of participating citizens. Occupational reconstruction is a concept developed in the Global North that offers an understanding of social activism from an occupational perspective. Decolonial theory reminds us to pay attention to geo-political relations of power and how these influence what is considered as knowledge, who is positioned as knowers, and how context is read. Guided by this framework, I situate myself as a thinker from the Global South and engage with the concept of occupational reconstructions from this position, identifying what this construct might offer research concerned with violence in protest. I consider the case of Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) at the University of Cape Town between 2015 and 2016, noting questions raised by the application of this construct to these protests, the need for context-driven research in occupational science, and implications for the role and scope of occupational therapy practice.