On the road

• Main Author: Roseli Esquerdo Lopes
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Federal de São Carlos 2013-04-01
• Series: Cadernos de Terapia Ocupacional
• Subjects: Occupational Therapy/History; Occupational Therapy/Research and Knowledge Production; Occupational Therapy/Tendencies; Higher Education
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.4322%2Fcto.v21i1.743
• ISSN: 0104-4931; 2238-2860

This essay summarizes my academic career and consists of a Memorial presented to the Department of Occupational Therapy, which integrates the Center for Biological and Health Sciences, at the Federal University of São Carlos (São Carlos/São Paulo/Brazil), as part of a tendering process for a position of Full Professor of Occupational Therapy, Subarea Social Occupational Therapy, held in February 2012. If the notion of “scientific field”, as defined by Pierre Bourdieu, makes clear, in a generic way, what the demarcations of a field and its constituent competitions should be, writing down a Memorial can be thought of as an appropriated intellectual instrument to inquire about the formation of a particular scientific field and may actually provide important insights about the social scenario and history emerging from the background of unique trajectories. In that sense, this paper describes my personal “road” working in the state of São Paulo for the last 32 years as an occupational therapist, lecturer and researcher in Brazil, leading to my contributions to the understanding of propositions in occupational therapy and to the academic construction of social occupational therapy. In order to comprehend the existing occupational therapies – and one may or may not agree with the assumptions made, in each case – the debate of their founding ideas and unique formulations is essential, therefore contributing to the understanding of related actual practices, higher education and research in the area, in our country.