Kaitlin R. Sibbald’s research while affiliated with Dalhousie University and other places

Researcher reflexivity and acknowledgement of positionality are emerging as key concepts for evaluating the quality of qualitative research. Collectively, we explore the relationship between reflexivity and positionality statements as reflexive practice, considering who benefits, who has authority, and our expectations of each other as qualitative researchers. Moving between examples of doing reflexivity in practice and what is often requested of authors during the peer review and editorial processes, we challenge the idea that positionality statements in the form of identity disclosures ought to be taken as the token performance of reflexive work, despite their frequent use as such. We begin by outlining the role and purpose of reflexivity in qualitative research and follow by examining the turn toward identity disclosure as fulfilling this purpose. Following, we examine the ways in which a “shopping list” positionality statement can create disproportionate risk, reinforce stereotypes, and homogenize researchers identifying with marginalized groups, without necessarily benefiting the research process or how research is communicated. In addition, we present alternative ways of doing and communicating reflexivity in qualitative research that, although not without their own challenges, allow reflexivity to take up the space it deserves during the research process and dissemination. [open access on the journal's site]

Occupational therapy’s goal of professional status comes with costs. Sociologists argue that ‘professionalism’ exhorts workers to conform with normative expectations for behaviour and performance, becoming a mechanism of social control. Those performative expectations are established by socially dominant groups, constructing occupational therapists from marginalized groups as not-professional, unless they can contort themselves to conform. Here we explore the specific behaviours and forms of embodiedness that become encoded as ‘professional’ in occupational therapy, leaving particular groups of occupational therapists subject to discipline through the concept of ‘unprofessional’. We conducted a critical interpretive synthesis of literature indexed in CINAHL and EBSCOhost defining professional behaviour in occupational therapy (n=26). We also draw from in-depth qualitative interviews with 20 Canadian occupational therapists who self-identified as racialized, ethnic minority, disabled, 2SLGBTQ+, and/or from working-class/impoverished family origins, exploring how ‘professionalism’ serves to discipline and control them. For both approaches, we employed reflexive thematic analysis. Texts encode professionalism as specific behaviours and forms of embodiedness grounded in white, western politics of respectability. Some also exhort occupational therapists to never make the profession ‘look bad’. In our interview data, occupational therapists from marginalized groups risked being construed as ‘unprofessional’ by having the ‘wrong’ bodies, appearances, presentation of self, speech language use, emotions, behaviours, and boundaries. When ‘professionalism’ demands assimilation to normative standards that exclude particular kinds of people, we narrow the potential of occupational therapy to encompass diverse valuable ways of doing, being, becoming and belonging. There is an important role for ‘professional resistance.’

In the 40 years since federal employment equity initiatives were launched in Canada, they have faced persistent backlash. This backlash is grounded in and fueled by conceptualizations of justice and equality that are rooted in ideologies of individualism and meritocracy. Here we draw on 140 qualitative interviews with members of six professions from across Canada, who self-identify as Indigenous, Black or racialized, ethnic minority, disabled, 2SLGBTQ+, and/or from working-class origins, to explore tensions between concepts of justice grounded in group-based oppressions and those grounded in individual egalitarianism. Though affirmative action and employment equity opened up opportunities, people were still left to fight for individual rights. This push to individualism was intensified by persistent hostile misperceptions that people are less qualified and in receipt of ‘unfair advantages.’ Through discursive misdirection, potential for transformative institutional change is undermined by liberal discourses of individualism and meritocracy.

Interprofessional collaboration (IPC) in stroke care is accepted as best practice and necessary given the multi-system challenges and array of professionals involved. Our two-part stroke team simulations offer an intentional interprofessional educational experience (IPE) embedded in pre-licensure occupational therapy, physical therapy, pharmacy, medicine, nursing and speech-language pathology curricula. This six-year mixed method program evaluation aimed to determine if simulation delivery differences necessitated by COVID-19 impacted students' IPC perception, ratings, and reported learning. Following both simulations, the Interprofessional Collaborative Competency Assessment Scale (ICCAS) and free-text self-reported learning was voluntarily and anonymously collected. A factorial ANOVA using the ICCAS interprofessional competency factors compared scores across delivery methods. Content and category analysis was done for free-text responses. Overall, delivery formats did not affect positive changes in pre-post ICCAS scores. However, pre and post ICCAS scores were significantly different for interprofessional competencies of roles/responsibilities and collaborative patient/family centered approach. Analysis of over 10,000 written response to four open-ended questions revealed the simulation designs evoked better understanding of others' and own scope of practice, how roles and shared leadership change based on context and client need, and the value of each team member's expertise. Virtual-experience-only students noted preference for an in-person stroke clinic simulation opportunity.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought the debate about the ethics of metaphors to the fore. In this article, I draw on blending theory—a theory of cognition—and theories of epistemic injustice to explore both the epistemic and ethical implications of metaphors. Beginning with a discussion of the conceptual alterations that may result from the use of metaphors, I argue that the effects these alterations have on available hermeneutical resources have the potential to result in a type of hermeneutical injustice distinct from the “lacuna” described by Miranda Fricker (Fricker 2007). Following, I examine how metaphors may therefore be considered “ethically bad epistemic practice,” as described by Rebecca Mason, because of how they may contribute to perpetuating an inequitable epistemic status quo (Mason 2011). Yet these same features may be used to promote epistemic justice in the context of intersectional power relationships. Situating the effects of metaphors within an inequitable yet dynamic epistemic system, I argue that foregrounding intersectional power dynamics enables us to interrogate the ethics of metaphors with consideration of both the epistemic and material consequences that may occur. I conclude by providing guidance for how, given that metaphors do epistemic work, we may use them to do ethical epistemic work.

As universities and colleges around the world moved online in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, questions were raised about the impacts of this transition on institutional commitments towards and capacity to provide equitable learning environments: access to all students, inclusive experiences within courses and/or programs, and achieve equitable outcomes across all intersections of diversity—including, but not limited to, race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, socio-economic background, levels of parental education, access to technological resources, and geographic location. In this chapter, we report on our systematic review of institutional policies and communications in response to the pandemic at four different Canadian universities to explore how they attended to issues of equity and student success in an online/remote environment. As part of a larger data set, the research team analysed existing institutional policies related to online learning, the public institutional communication (particularly to students) about the transition online, and the explicit commitments made to support the creation of equitable learning environments for students. This examination of how equity has been framed and addressed during a time of global crisis will have implications for the future development of equitable learning environments in higher education.

Academics have historically been members of socially dominant groups—white, cisgender, heterosexual men, from middle- to upper-classes, who identify as able-bodied and able-minded. Members of other groups are often disadvantaged. In two larger studies, semi-structured interviews were conducted with professionals from marginalized groups. Here we explore the narratives of 16 participants who explicitly discussed their experiences in faculty positions within the health and social service professions. The expected academic roles of teacher, researcher, and colleague/administrator did not neatly fit for participants, clashing with the expectations they faced by virtue of their marginalized identities. Within the health and social service professions, the norms and expectations of the academy required marginalized faculty to make sacrifices of their time and sense of self to meet job demands. The effects of these role conflicts are pervasive, affecting many areas of academic work and beyond.

In the aftermath of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, there is a predicted (and emerging) increase in experiences of mental illness. This phenomenon has been described as “the next pandemic”, suggesting that the concepts used to understand and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic are being transferred to conceptualize mental illness. The COVID-19 pandemic was, and continues to be, framed in public media using military metaphors, which can potentially migrate to conceptualizations of mental illness along with pandemic rhetoric. Given that metaphors shape what is considered justifiable action, and how we understand justice, I argue we have a moral responsibility to interrogate who benefits and who is harmed by the language and underlying conceptualizations this rhetoric legitimates. By exploring how military metaphors have been used in the context of COVID-19, I argue that this rhetoric has been used to justify ongoing harm to marginalized groups while further entrenching established systems of power. Given this history, I present what it may look like were military metaphors used to conceptualize a “mental illness pandemic”, what actions this might legitimate and render inconceivable, and who is likely to benefit and be harmed by such rhetorically justified actions.