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About new forms of colonization in occupational therapy. Reflections on the Idea of Occupational Justice from a critical-political philosophy perspective1 1 This manuscript corresponds to the full text of the summary presented in the inaugural panel of the X Argentine Congress and Xlll Latin American Congress of Occupational Therapy, in the city of Tucumán, Argentina, in September 2019. ,2 2 The writing of this article assumes the perspective of human rights and sexual and gender diversity established in the Manual Mobilizing Diversity of Amnesty International, which indicates that in the writing of a text “[...] the letter x is used to propose a that includes all those people who identify with the various expressions and gender identities” (Amnistía Internacional, 2019, p. 3).

Abstract

Based on a critical political philosophy position, this is a reflection of the emergence of a variety of new concepts in North-Eurocentric occupational therapy. In this new prolific and technocratic grammar, the idea of ​​Occupational Justice (OJ) has largely resulted in this scenario, as well as in other spaces on the periphery of the global world system of the profession, particularly in academia. I maintain that the idea of ​​Occupational Justice (OJ) has become a new form of epistemic and cognitive colonization of the profession, which operates under universalist, essentialist, liberal assumptions, typical of modern Eurocentric rationality. This idea of ​​a single, homogeneous justice, associated with the notion of occupation would allow occupational therapy (OT) to methodologically fulfill its professional and disciplinary work structured under scientific assumptions and respond appropriately to the new complexities of its work. In the development of the text, the idea of ​​justice is recognized as a notion that derives from political philosophy. The definition of justice and fairness is presented, according to political philosophy in its liberal and communitarian aspects. The scope of the idea of ​​OJ and its colonial implications are delimited, an idea of ​​Justice is proposed based on a critical ethical-political criterion, not an instrumental technical one, based on the idea of good living, under a pluricultural logic, of an anti-capitalist, communitarian order and that it materializes an expression of situated human rights, based on the recognition of difference.

Keywords:
Occupational Therapy; Politics; Social Justice; Colonialism; Latin America

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