Centering the Complexity of Long-Term Unemployment: Lessons Learned from a Critical Occupational Science Inquiry
department or school: Medicine, Faculty of
department or school: Non UBC
department or school: Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, Department of
data provider: DSpace
identifier citation: Societies 10 (3): 65 (2020)
creator: Aldrich, Rebecca M.
creator: Rudman, Debbie Laliberte
creator: Park, Na Eon (Esther)
creator: Huot, Suzanne
issued: 2020-09-28T23:15:37Z
issued: 2020-09-11
description: Inquiries that rely on temporal framings to demarcate long-term unemployment risk generating partial understandings and grounding unrealistic policy solutions. In contrast, this four-phase two-context study aimed to generate complex understandings of post-recession long-term unemployment in North America. Grounded in a critical occupational perspective, this collaborative ethnographic study also drew on street-level bureaucracy and governmentality perspectives to understand how social policies and discursive constructions shaped people’s everyday ‘doing’ within the arena of long-term unemployment. Across three phases, study methods included interviews with 15 organizational stakeholders who oversaw employment support services; interviews, participant observations, and focus groups with 18 people who provided front-line employment support services; and interviews, participant observations, time diaries, and occupational mapping with 23 people who self-identified as being long-term unemployed. We draw on selected interviews and mapping data to illustrate how participants’ definitions and experiences of long-term unemployment reflected and moved beyond dominant temporally based framings. These findings reinforce the need to expand the dominant conceptualizations of long-term unemployment that shape scholarly inquiries and policy responses. Reflections on the benefits and challenges of this study’s design also reinforce the need to use multiple, flexible methods to center the complexity of long-term unemployment as it is experienced in everyday life.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/76191
note: societiesArticleCentering the Complexity of Long-TermUnemployment: Lessons Learned from a CriticalOccupational Science InquiryRebecca M. Aldrich 1,* , Debbie Laliberte Rudman 2 , Na Eon (Esther) Park 1 andSuzanne Huot 31 Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, University of Southern California,Los Angeles, CA 90008, USA; naeonpar@usc.edu2 Faculty of Health Sciences, Western University, London, ON N6A 3K7, Canada; drudman@uwo.ca3 Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, University of British Columbia,Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada; suzanne.huot@ubc.ca* Correspondence: rebecca.aldrich@chan.usc.eduReceived: 11 August 2020; Accepted: 7 September 2020; Published: 11 September 2020Abstract: Inquiries that rely on temporal framings to demarcate long-term unemployment risk generatingpartial understandings and grounding unrealistic policy solutions. In contrast, this four-phase two-contextstudy aimed to generate complex understandings of post-recession long-term unemployment inNorth America. Grounded in a critical occupational perspective, this collaborative ethnographicstudy also drew on street-level bureaucracy and governmentality perspectives to understand howsocial policies and discursive constructions shaped people’s everyday ‘doing’ within the arenaof long-term unemployment. Across three phases, study methods included interviews with 15organizational stakeholders who oversaw employment support services; interviews, participantobservations, and focus groups with 18 people who provided front-line employment support services;and interviews, participant observations, time diaries, and occupational mapping with 23 people whoself-identified as being long-term unemployed. We draw on selected interviews and mapping data toillustrate how participants’ definitions and experiences of long-term unemployment reflected andmoved beyond dominant temporally based framings. These findings reinforce the need to expandthe dominant conceptualizati…
has type: Article
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0394528
language: eng
peer review status: Reviewed
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
publisher DOI: 10.3390/soc10030065
rights: CC BY 4.0
rights URI: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
scholar level: Faculty
subject: long-term unemployment
subject: critical occupational perspective
subject: methods
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/76191