Biography
I have been an occupational therapy academic for 13 years, before which I practised occupational therapy in Palestine and in the UK in a variety of settings, including with children and young people, and with adults with physical needs. I have an MSc in Therapeutic Counselling and a PhD in Health and Social Care.
I am currently an Associate Professor of Occupational Therapy at Edinburgh Napier University teaching on the MSc programme in Occupational Therapy. I take part in scholarship activities concerned with Global South everyday life and with decolonising the disciplines of Occupational Therapy and Occupational Science.
My PhD focused on the everyday life of olive growers in Palestine and how they respond to the ‘occupational apartheid’ they are forced to live in; a situation in which they are restricted from accessing their land and the daily activities that they rely on for their livelihood. This study has since been an ongoing project and has extended to include collaborating with communities of shepherds in Palestine who employ everyday forms of resistance to achieve their social and occupational justice. I have also been privileged to take part in a National Institute for Health and Care Research funded project in Sierra Leone to help evaluate health and social care services and practices from a social justice and decolonial perspectives.
In my teaching practice, I am interested in critical and transformative approaches to higher education, in which learners explore their positionalities and inter-sectionalities and reflect on themselves as agents of change who are concerned with working with individuals and communities to advocate for equitable access to meaningful and purposeful daily activities for all. I teach critical approaches to occupational science and occupational justice and supervise theses addressing similar areas of focus. I am particularly interested in studying, and coproducing knowledges and praxis, with communities who are marginalised by neo-liberal capitalism, systemic racism, wars, natural disasters and colonisation, such as people seeking refuge, and other Global South groups.
I am an Associate Editor for the Journal of Occupational Science, and I published peer-reviewed papers related to my research and pedagogy with this journal and other international publications. I am currently working on a book based on my PhD study to be published by the University of Georgia Press in 2024.
Please visit the below links for more information regarding my publications and projects:
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6741-0686
https://researchgate.net/profile/juman_simaan