‘Bodies out of place’ in Occupational Therapy’s spaces of education: the struggle for humanising research as a site of resistance and emancipation

Abstract (English)

My PhD explores the lived experience and phenomenon of one’s ‘body feeling out of place’, particularly within profession-specific and institutional spaces and how such experiences can be understood in relation to identity, the stories we internalise about ourselves and each other and the power these hold over our collective wellbeing and imagination.

Research ‘is probably the dirtiest word in the Indigenous world’s vocabulary’ (Smith, 2001) and researchers seeking to explore lived experiences of trauma, without critical awareness of socio-historical and political processes and underlying epistemic effects, are at risk of re-traumatising, disempowering and dispossessing minoritised participants.

This paper seeks to explore the phenomenon of one’s body feeling out of place and how this could impact doing, being, belonging and becoming within occupational therapy’s spaces of education, whilst placing some of these experiences in context of a struggle for humanising research as an act of resistance, empowerment and emancipation.


[The PhD researcher is herself a minoritised occupational therapist - allied health professional, and lecturer]