Occupational Therapy and Arts Therapies
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/25
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Item The Material Culture of Art Therapy: Less Is More(Informa UK Limited, 2026-01-20) Whitaker, Pamela; McDermid-Thomas, AdrienneThis is a viewpoint shared by two art psychotherapy educators in the United Kingdom reducing their reliance on bought art materials within their professional training programs. They propose a reimagining and reuse of manufactured materials with an appreciation of regenerative practices. The material culture of art therapy typically endorses an accumulation of material resources rather than a reduced repertoire of choice. A new materialist pedagogy for art therapy recognizes the agency of materials and their volition and active participation within art therapy practice and education. The purpose of this shared commentary is to propose a new perspective on art therapy materials with an aim to reduce single-use consumption.Item E.10. Sumud As Informal and Non-formal Educational Practice in Everyday Life in Palestine(Associazione "Per Scuola Democratica", 2026) Shqair, Manal; Alowda, Shatha; Soliman, Mahmoud; Giatsi Clausen, Maria; Scandrett, EurigAcross decades of settler colonial domination and apartheid, Palestinian communities have developed forms of everyday resistance that are deeply educational, and democratic. This panel explores sumud as a mode of embodied political agency, focusing particularly on, but not solely, women whose daily practices of care, labour, and community life become forms of resistance and citizenship under conditions of structural violence (Johansson & Vinthagen, 2020). Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives from anthropology, feminist theory, Indigenous studies, Palestine studies, occupational science, public sociology, and lifelong education, the panel investigates how meaningful occupations as purposeful activity, livelihood and participation in community life, become sites of learning, resistance, and democratic possibility (Hocking, 2009). The panel is an opportunity to explore the contested space of the hegemonic common sense of the oppressor vs. the good sense of the oppressed in Gramsci's sense of "every relationship of hegemony is necessarily an educational relationship" (Gramsci, 1971). We invite contributions that address the role of informal education in the resistance of Palestinians bearing the brunt of Israeli violence. Papers may explore embodied and affective labour; sustaining land-based knowledge through oral narratives; intergenerational identity; the politics of everyday care, and how informal educational practices shape collective resilience. By highlighting sumud as both a pedagogical and political process that is enacted by Palestinian women and men as a form of informal politics, the panel aims to frame democratic education beyond institutional settings by focusing on informal and non-formal spaces to show how communities, under settler colonialism and apartheid, generate learning, meaning making, and resistance.Item E.02. Children as Political Actors: Rethinking School, Agency, and Democracy(Associazione "Per Scuola Democratica", 2026) Giatsi Clausen, Maria; Kustatscher, Marlies; Konstantoni, KristinaThis panel explores how children often act as political subjects within and beyond school, and how their participation, resistance, and everyday negotiations invite new ways of understanding democracy. Rather than viewing children as adults and citizens "in-waiting", we emphasize the diverse ways they already engage with power through dialogue, collective action and activism, subtle forms of resistance or subversiveness, and practices of meaning making. These actions challenge assumptions that political agency emerges only with maturity and reveal schools as contested spaces where democratic capacities are reproduced, constrained and, potentially, reimagined. Schools operate within hierarchical, surveillance-driven, and neoliberal structures that often privilege compliance and, at times, inequality. They also contain possibilities for agency, solidarity, and democratic expression. Children’s responses, ranging from everyday infrapolitics to activism, highlight capacity to interpret, contest, and reshape their social worlds. Moreover, participatory and dialogic approaches to learning can open spaces where intergenerational relations become more reciprocal, enabling children to articulate concerns and analyse conditions. The panel invites contributions that expand the democratic imaginary to include children as active co-participants in civic life. We welcome papers from education studies, childhood studies, sociology, political philosophy, anthropology, psychology, social policy, critical pedagogy, occupational science, and related interdisciplinary fields, drawing on theory, empirical research, or policy analysis. The panel aligns with the themes such as as Childhood, Citizenship & Social and Cultural Justice, Pedagogical Practices, Democratic Participation & School Governance, as it stresses children’s political agency and the democratisation of schooling.Item Children’s Resistance, Participation and the Scholē: Re-imagining Human Rights Education(International Association for Human Rights Education, 2026) Giatsi Clausen, MariaThis paper brings together empirical work with young children in participatory research and a critical theoretical analysis of formal schooling to argue for re-imagining human rights education (HRE) in a turbulent world. Drawing on participative research enquiry in early childhood and primary settings, the paper shows how children understand their UN rights to protection, provision and participation, yet experience these rights unevenly. While children frequently report that their participation rights are curtailed, adults often invoke protection rights to justify restrictions on children’s agency, questioning their credibility, or limiting their involvement in matters affecting them. This structural tension—between safeguarding children and enabling them to act as political subjects—emerges as a defining contradiction within contemporary schooling, in particular. These insights are placed alongside a critique of the modern school as an ideological state apparatus, where grading, surveillance and age-based organisation reproduce inequalities for both children and teachers. Using Havel’s notion of “ideological excuses” and Tesar’s theorisation of childhood subjectivities, the paper examines children’s strategic compliance, subtle resistance, and moments of solidarity with teachers, as well as the ambivalent outcomes of “counter-school” cultures. Against calls to depoliticise education, the paper argues for an openly politicised HRE that confronts the realities of domination, agency and intergenerational power. To expand the educational imaginary, the paper advances the ancient Greek concept of the Scholē as a resource for re-envisioning HRE as democratised, playful and non-commodified time for collective inquiry and action. Such spaces, within and beyond school, can nurture critical consciousness, strengthen intergenerational solidarity, and support the realisation of children’s rights—particularly their right to participate—in increasingly unequal societies.Item The Routledge International Handbook of Art Therapy Practice [Edited book](Routledge, 2025-12-01) Hills de Zárate, Margaret; Waller, Diane; Vaculik, Claire LouiseThis book offers a snapshot of the international state of the art in art therapy. The range of work included does not come from one school, theoretical approach, or one type of creative practice, but instead shows the inherent ability of the art therapist to see what is present and to adapt, flexibly and creatively, to meet the unique needs of people and contexts. The chapters are organised under five broad-ranging themes—art therapy across the life cycle, theoretical frameworks, areas of practice, new developments, and policies—and are written by a diverse range of newer voices from countries where art therapy is starting to gain ground as well as a variety of internationally renowned practitioners and academics. The handbook speaks to the breadth and richness in contemporary art therapy practice around the world. The case studies and examples demonstrate the ways in which art therapists are managing the challenges and opportunities in their socio-political context, drawing links to existing art traditions and supportive practices in their culture, and working to address contemporary challenges. This book is essential for students and professionals of art therapy, drama, dance movement, and music therapy.Item Conclusion: From Meaningful Alienation to Emancipatory Praxis - The Role of Social Movements(Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, 2026-01-27) Godoy-Vieira, Aline; Giatsi Clausen, Maria; Scandrett, EurigItem Resistance and Formal Schooling: Making a Case for Politicization and the Scholé(Bristol University Press, 2026-01-27) Giatsi Clausen, MariaItem Occupation as Hegemony(Bristol University Press, 2026-01-27) Giatsi Clausen, Maria; Scandrett, EurigItem Young Children and Participative Research Enquiry: A Case for Active Citizenship(Bristol University Press, 2022-03-01) Giatsi Clausen, MariaItem Crafting Creativity within Constructivist Grounded Theory(Routledge, 2026-01-22) Perryman-Fox, Michelle; Youngson, BelThis chapter offers a reflexive account of how occupational therapy practices can be harnessed to navigate the complexities of constructivist grounded theory, enabling researchers to remain grounded in their values while embracing the uncertainty and creativity inherent in qualitative inquiry.