A Need for Occupational Justice: The Impact of Racial Microaggression on Occupations, Wellness, and Health Promotion

“Ism,” in general terms describes a practice that denotes oppression of a group based on the characteristics of its members: racism, sexism, and ageism, are the three types most commonly identified. “Isms” often impose limits on people, and while we have been aware of those limits at the macro level, we have been less aware of acts that happen at the level of the individual, the micro level. These acts, which are frequently heard and seen in the media, have personal, occupational, and health implications for those affected by them. The purpose of this paper is to raise awareness about the issue of racial microaggression and, from occupational therapy and occupational science perspectives, explore how it impacts engagement in valued occupations, wellness, and health. This paper aims to encourage scientific discourse among practitioners, students, and educators so that we can truly be client-centered and culturally effective advocates for inclusion and participation in life

Of Mushrooms and Method: History and the Family in Hobbes’s Science of Politics

Hobbes’s account of the commonwealth is standardly interpreted to be primarily a theory of contract, whereby the archetypal manner of forming a political community is via an act of mutual agreement between suspicious individuals of equal power. By examining Hobbes’s theories of the pre-political family, and what he says about the role of real history in the development of political societies, I conclude that this standard interpretation is untenable. Rather, Hobbes’s conception of commonwealth ‘by institution’ is a hypothetical model used to illustrate the mechanics of sovereignty, and to reconcile men to the conditions of subjection to absolute political power. In practice, all sovereignty is originally by ‘acquisition’. Realizing this casts serious doubt on the possibility that Hobbes is a fundamentally democratic thinker. In turn, we are invited to reconsider the history of political thought after Hobbes, in particular by seeing his theory of the family and of history as a genealogical ancestor of Scottish Enlightenment political theory.This work was supported by The Arts and Humanities Research Council block grant, and the University of Cambridge Faculty of History Prince Consort & Thirlwall Trust.This is the accepted manuscript version. The final version is available from http://ept.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/04/21/1474885114531237.abstract