The 2010 Ruth Zemke Lecture in Occupational Science Occupational Therapy/Occupational Science/Occupational Justice: Moral Commitments and Global Assemblages

Abstract

Twenty years have passed since occupational science was founded. It is time to reassess the relationship of occupational science to its roots in occupational therapy and also to reopen a discussion of some foundational assumptions. In particular, we need to situate the profession, occupational therapy, and the discipline, occupational science, in relation to the phenomenon of globalization. The internationalization of the post-World War II era, followed by the neoliberalism of the 1980s, began an erosion of state sovereignty that has empowered new formations in the global marketplace. New spaces exist for political action by non-state players, especially those concerned with human rights. Globalization did not set the stage for the founding of occupational science, but we can no longer look at the discipline outside the context of globalization. Globalization set the context for the transnational advocacy networks now operating that link occupational therapy with occupational science in service of a shared moral philosophy of social hope.