International community of practice: learning from experiences of community development and social occupational therapy

Abstract

Introduction: Increasingly, occupational therapists and scientists across the globe are calling for a shift away from individualised western medical approaches, to working with communities and collectives, and in the social field. This signals the growing motivation to engage in socially responsive and transformative practices that address political structures and oppressive colonial systems. Objective: The purpose of our Community of Practice (CoP) was to explore and describe the epistemologies, vocabularies, and understandings that underpin community development and social occupational therapy within diverse global contexts to advance theoretical perspectives and practices. Method: As a CoP of occupational therapy and science scholars situated in four countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, and South Africa), we met virtually bi-monthly from March 2020 to January 2023. Scholarly work involved critical narrative literature reviews, reflexive presentations, group dialogues, and individual and collective reflections and analyses. Results: Individual narratives, four thematic threads, and a selection of vocabularies and epistemologies are presented. The thematic threads were: Connecting and making space for decolonial praxis, Questioning the disconnect between occupational therapy practice and contexts, Examining vocabularies that shape contextually relevant practice, and Engaging a reflexive stance to work towards equity, justice and social rights. Conclusions: Generating knowledge that supports ways of knowing, being and doing reflective of multiple languages, sciences, and contexts will strengthen occupational therapy. Maintaining the pluriversal and resisting ‘one size fits all’ approaches to human occupation/everyday life is essential. This paper offers practitioners a catalyst for initiating decolonising praxis for learning across global contexts.