From domestication to imperial patronage: Deconstructing the biomedicalisation of occupational therapy

Occupational therapy knowledge emerged in the 19th century as reformist movements responded to the industrialisation of society and capitalist expansion. In the Global North, it was institutionalised by State apparatuses during the First and Second World Wars. Although biomedicine contributed to the rapid expansion and establishment of occupational therapy as a health discipline, its domestication by the biomedical model led to an overly regulated profession that betrays its reformist ideals. Drawing on the work of Deleuze and Guattari, our aim in this article is to deconstruct the biomedicalisation of occupational therapy and demonstrate how resistance to this process is critical for the future of this discipline. The use of arts and crafts in occupational therapy may be conceptualised as a ‘nomad science’ aesthetically resisting the domination of industrialism and medical reductionism. Through the war efforts, a coalition of progressive nurses, social workers, teachers, artisans and activists metamorphosed into occupational therapists. As it did with nursing, biomedicine proceeded to domesticate occupational therapy through a form of ‘imperial’ patronage subsequently embodied in the evidence-based movement. ‘Occupational’ jargon is widely used today and may be viewed as the product of a profession trying to establish itself as an autonomous discipline that imposes its own regime of truth. Given the symbolic violence underlying this patronage, the future of occupational therapy should not mean behaving according to biomedicine’s terms. As a discipline, occupational therapy must resist the appropriation of its ‘war machine’ and craft its own terms through the release of new creative energy.

Deleuze Becoming-Mary Poppins: Re-Imagining the Concept of Becoming-Woman and Its Potential for Challenging Current Notions of Parenting, Gender and Childhood

In this paper, we consider the major and controversial lexicon of Deleuze’s ‘becoming-woman’ and what an alternative re-working of this concept might look like through the story of Mary Poppins. In playfully exploring the many interesting aspects of Travers’ character, with her classic tale about the vagaries of parenting, we attempt to highlight how reading Mary Poppins through the Deleuzian lens of ‘becoming-woman’ opens up possibilities, not limitations, in terms of feminist perspectives. In initially resisting the ‘Disneyfication’ of Mary Poppins, Travers offered insights and opportunities which we revisit and consider in terms of how this fictional character can significantly disrupt ideas of gender performativity. We endeavour to accentuate how one of its themes not only dismantles the patriarchy in 1910 but also has significant traction in the twenty- first century. We also put forth the idea of Mary Poppins as an icon of post-humanism, a nomadic war machine, with her robotic caring, magic powers and literal flights of fancy, to argue how she ironically holds the dual position of representing the professionalisation of parenting and the need to move beyond a Dionysian view of children as in need of control and regulation, as well as that of nurturer and emancipator. Indeed, in her many contradictions, we suggest a nomadic Mary Poppins can offer a route into the ideas of Deleuze and his view of children as de-territorialising forces and activators of change.

Examining the Dutch Resistance Movement During World War II

This paper is an analysis of the Dutch resistance movement during World War II. During the German occupation of the Netherlands, 102,000 Dutch Jews were deported and killed, which amounted to approximately 75 percent of the pre-war Jewish population in the Netherlands. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of Dutch civilians were forced to work in German work camps to fuel the German war machine. Despite this, only 4% of Dutch citizens participated in the resistance movement. This paper will examine the roles of these resistance fighters, as well as several primary sources that demonstrate their importance and significance. It will explain that resistance work was incredibly dangerous work done by many local organizations that when combined formed a national movement. The resistance movement was recognized and encouraged by the Dutch government in exile and was viewed as a threat by the German occupiers. Ultimately, members of the resistance movement should be viewed as heroes who were willing to stand up to the evil of the Nazi regime and risk their lives for freedom.

"Not at Home in Empire"

Amitav Ghosh opposes the “agonistic” or “reconciliatory” strand in postcolonial studies espoused amongst others by Bhabha. By fusing postcolonialism with postmodernism, this school of postcolonial thought rejects resistance and reconfigures the historical project of invasion, expropriation and exploitation as a symbiotic encounter. As a staunch anti-colonialist, what Ghosh presents in his writing is the ubiquity of the Eurocentrism of the colonized. The Glass Palace represents how colonial discourses (primarily the military discourse) have molded native identity and resulted in severe vulnerability and existential crisis. Self-alienation is apparent in the characters of the Collector, a Britain-trained colonial administrator and the soldier, Arjun, who has been transformed into a war-machine in the hands of British military discourse. The narrative attempts to revisit and reframe the colonial past by questioning the ideological, epistemological and ontological assumptions of the imperial powers, the masks of conquest. The community of the disillusioned soldiers of the British Indian army presented in The Glass Palace is one that challenges, provokes, threatens, but also enlivens, is a community of disagreement, dissonance, and resistance. Popular or insurgent nationalism thus reclaims or imagines forms of community and challenges colonial rule giving shape to a collective political identity. This article also intends to trace the failures of Burmese nationalism after a series of insurrections on ethnic grounds belied the aspirations of the postcolonial nation state.

The Nomadic War Machine in Jack Kerouac’s Vanity of Duluoz and On the Road

This study inquiries into Jack Kerouac’s Vanity of Duluoz (1968) and On the Road (1957) from the perspective of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s nomadic war machine. It shifts from a rigorous scrutiny of Vanity of Duluoz for its general account of the Duluoz legend, Kerouac’s alter ego, to the study of On the Road for its more specific narrative of a certain period in Kerouac’s life. Being an iconic figure of rebellion and non-conformity in capitalist America during the postwar era, Kerouac’s literary works have a certain social and political magnitude that falls within the discourse of deconstructing orthodoxy and dogma. The study elucidates how Kerouac’s characters subvert the social norms and the state’s institutions in order to break free from pre-structured beliefs. The thesis of the article is to corroborate that such non-conformity and insubordination, exemplified in Kerouac’s autobiographical works, align with the nomadic characteristic of Deleuze and Guattari’s war machine. By extension, it aims at presenting Kerouac as the Deleuzeguattarian nomad who creates nomadic characters that deterritorialize post-war America from within.

Crucified by the War Machine

Nussbaum studies Britten's War Requiem for its insight into the possibility of reconciliation after armed conflict, focusing on images of the body, both beautiful and vulnerable.

When war came home: air-raid shock in World War I

During World War I, civilians became a target of the war machine. Air raids transformed the lives of those not involved in active combat and blurred the lines between the home front and the war front. This paper argues that the experience of air raids in World War I was comparable to the combat stress at the Western Front. The author bases her argument on contemporary publications in medical journals, measures taken by British authorities to prevent air-raid shock, and contemporary case records. The narratives of air-raid shock – similarly to those of shell-shocked soldiers – reflect the feelings of terror and loss of control, and demonstrate the profound effect these experiences could have on individuals’ mental health.