Transactional Perspectives on Occupation

An occupation is, most simply put, any activity we participate in that engages (occupies) our attention, interests, and/or expectations, at any point throughout the life course. This book offers an emerging and innovative perspective on occupation, based in the work of American philosopher John Dewey and other pragmatists, that challenges accepted ideas. Each chapter presents a lively and multifaceted dialogue on transactional perspectives on occupation. Scholars from Europe, North America, and Australasia have written a diverse set of arguments and case studies about occupation, covering theoretical, methodological and applied issues relevant to the topic. In addition, contributors make connections with significant authors from various disciplines that make clearer the roles of occupation and occupational science across many cultures and contexts. The transactional perspectives articulated in this book both implicitly and explicitly suggest that occupations are forms of activity that create and re-create a multitude of our relationships with the world. Often taken for granted by some academic disciplines, occupation is a core element of human life. This book is a provocative and critical analysis of the focal concept for occupational therapy and science.

• American Occupational Therapy Association AOTA
• Being occupied in the everyday
• Core element of human life
• Deweyan educational philosophy
• Embodiment, growth and occupation
• Ethnography
• Home modification process
• John Dewey
• Life course
• Living with chronic conditions
• Meaning of occupation
• Occupational reconstructions after post-civil war Guatemala
• Occupational science
• Occupational therapy
• Place integration
• Quality of everyday occupation
• Research on occupation
• Situated nature of disability
• Situated nature of occupation
• Social justice
• Transactional perspective on Immigration
• Transactionalism

• , Div Occupational Health, Dept Allied Hea, University of North Carolina at Chapel H, Chapel Hill, USA

  Malcolm P. Cutchin, Virginia A. Dickie

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