Political action in occupational therapy: an integrative review

Abstract

Introduction: Political actions are inherent to all everyday processes, both to maintain hegemony or to develop new projects in society. Objective: To understand the discussions about political action referenced in the occupational therapy bibliography. Methodology: An integrative review of the literature produced in the last five years, indexed by Web of Science, SciELO, Scopus and Lilacs databases, was carried out. The search equations “política” and “terapia ocupacional” were used in Spanish and in Portuguese; and “Occupational Therapy” and (politic OR policy OR policies), in English. The process was described according to the PRISMA proposal to relate identification, selection, and integrative analysis, as well as to propose documentary eligibility. Results: The corpus consisted of 14 articles distributed in five journals, three of them from South America. It is evident that the discussions about political action have developed particularly in the South. The documents were analyzed under four categories: hegemony, resistance, tensions, and contradictions, present in the conceptual constructions and practices described. Two disputes about the political action of occupational therapists emerge: the first is related to the profession, and the second to the political place of the occupational therapist. Conclusion: It is imperative to promote the construction of new hegemonies within professional actions, which are also political actions. Likewise, it is necessary to advance in epistemological, ontological, ethical, and political developments that support the proposed new common senses. Social occupational therapy in Brazil shows progress in this direction.