Occupational therapy across South America: An overview of its backgrounds, current situation and some contemporary issues

My aim in this chapter is to highlight a wide range of elements and the ways in which they became issues for South American occupational therapists. these issues pertain to professional training, practice, advocacy and knowledge production. In this chapter I will explore some of the following questions: how is South American occupational therapy distinguished from that of other regions? Have we, South American occupational therapists, established our own independent academic and practice agendas? Do we have a regional identity and common framework that crosses our borders? In bringing a variety of issues together, I do not aim to offer definitive answers but rather to shed some light on the discussion. I will not defend the idea of a consolidated and unified South American occupational therapy. Neither will I argue that there is a lack of it. In my perspective, there are tensions between the universalize occupational theraphy values, practices, theories and local and regional perspectives. These contemporary issues are both a product and a producer of our professional identity that have spatial/ geographical and historical roots. I argue that it is within these tensions that we defining our self-concept as South American occupational therapists. Since these spatial/ geographical and historical back grounds are layout of our present status, in the first section of this chpater I will briefly explore these two points.