Social Movements' Contribution to Discontinuities in Hegemonic Work, Life and Occupation [Abstract]

Abstract

This paper examines how hegemonic forces shape the meaning of everyday activities that are experienced as meaningful yet reinforce alienation. The concept of “hegemonic occupation” highlights how dominant societal ideologies, particularly under capitalism, define certain activities or occupations as valuable while disconnecting individuals from their labour and its purpose. The historical separation of “work” from “life” in early capitalism has normalized this alienation, especially for marginalized groups, in the interests of the powerful. Social movements challenge these norms, promoting counterhegemonic practices that foster creativity, self-determination, and liberation. Occupational Therapy emerged from such counter-hegemonic practices in Jane Addam’s Hull House public sociology project, before being professionalized in association with the medical profession and orientated towards rehabilitation.

Drawing from the dialogue between this thesis and social movements (case studies) based on Burawoy’s extended case method, which took place during the writing of an upcoming book, the paper explores and discusses the themes of meaningful alienation and contested occupation through, for example: a. the role of trade unions, especially in the gig and surveillance economy, in addressing the need to go beyond merely defending work-life, into fighting for meaningful work beyond economic productivity; b. volunteerism, focusing on the experiences of people with lived experiene of mental illness and the coercion of paid employment; c. the feminist movement’s challenge to ‘gendered jobs’ and the division of domestic labour; d, disabled people’s movement’s use of arts to challenge professionals’ insistence on normalization; e, the Mad Studies academic discipline and activism, and illuminating the mental distress resulting from the loss of meaningfulness and exploitative, colonising economic logic; f. decentralising formal, conventional education, proposing community-driven models where children and the youth shape and control their own learning and create spaces for social engagement and democratic participation; g, the everyday practices of Palestinian farmers as a form of resistance to Zionist colonization. Following Raymond Williams these movements constitute emergent selections from social practice to contest meaningfulness in work and occupation.

The paper concludes with key discussion points around the importance of distinguishing between activities that sustain existing social structures and those that contribute to emancipatory praxis. The authors argue how the concept of labour enables the analysis of occupations as sites of both alienation and potential transformation. Drawing on social movement theory and historical dialectical materialism, the authors finally argue that participation in counter-hegemonic occupations enables individuals and groups to challenge systems of oppression, and develop radical needs that transcend capitalist structures.