Occupational therapy and culture: Ethical-political dimensions and resistances

Abstract

This reflective work proposes to debate of culture as a polysemic term and intrinsic to the life of human beings and the development of any societies. It reflects on the neoliberal rationality tied to the social model of capitalist production that affects the economy and politics and also on the production of meanings, desires, and ways of relating to the world, directly impacting human activities, daily life, and the reality that surrounds us. Thus, it intends to provoke and question, from a critical perspective, how occupational therapy can be articulated in the quest to build possibilities of care, emancipation, participation, and citizenship of multiple collective subjects. Occupational therapists who take on the ethical-political commitment to dealing directly with cultural and social demands, especially from a critical perspective, can co-create and strengthen against hegemonic and resistance movements.