References for Participation in Occupation II blog content

Arendt, H. (1958, p.7).  The human condition.  Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Caulton, R. & Dickson, R.  (2007).  What’s going on? Finding an explanation for what we do.  In J. Creek & A. Lawson-Porter (Eds.), Contemporary issues in occupational therapy (pp. 87-114).  Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Gura, T. S. (2010). Mindfulness in occupational therapy education. Occupational therapy in health care, 24(3), 266-273. Retrieved from http://informahealthcare.com/ohc

Law, M. (2002). Participation in the occupation of everyday life. The American journal of occupational therapy, 56(6), 640-647.

Slagle, C. E. (2006). The world of everyday occupation: real people, real lives. The American journal of occupational therapy, 60(6), 627-639.

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Entry 7 scrap-booking

Additional information which is worth reading to conclude the topic of scrap-booking)

This is my last activity engagement. I hope you enjoyed reading about my feelings and experiences that this paper facilitated.

It was a Sunday when my daughter and I decided to scrapbook. We were excited to do this together, however we had to set the table and the equipment so that we could do his activity. Together we worked on and decided on the type of background that we used on the scrapbook page, and then we negotiated on the photos that we were using. 

As we were doing this, we departed to a past time the photos related to. It was a great opportunity to find out my daughter’s perception and feelings about the time we spent in Tauranga a few months ago. While she was shaping the corners of the photos, I was mainly playing the role of a facilitator. My daughter was complaining that the glue stuck to her finger, therefore, as a protective mother, I stepped in and helped her out by taking the photos out of her hands. Now I think back and I reflect on the fact that I should not be overly protective and change the environment for my daughter. This is because I can reduce the opportunities for her to deal with a variety of situations that could slow down her development. This makes me think whether it is ethical to interfere with someone’s opportunity to develop certain skills. 

The scrapbook started to look really good and we both had a good feeling about doing things together.

Me and my scrapbooking

Entry 6 scrap-booking

Scrap-booking can be done both as labor and as work. Labor is defined by Arendt (1958, p.7) as “…the activity which corresponds to the biological process of the human body”, and work as “…the activity which corresponds to the unnaturalness of human existence”.

There is a large scrapbooking community in New Zealand, sharing a website called “creative memories”. They see scrapbooking as labor, in the sense that they do it as business. They may also consider this work, because it is a pleasant way of spending time productively, on a spiritual level. 

Scrapbooking as labor means nothing at this certain point in my life. I am an artist. I mostly do scrapbooking as a way of expressing my creativity, and not to fulfil financial needs. The occupation of scrapbooking comes under craft. Craftspeople in the community are makers of stories that transmit their own feelings and emotions.

This brings an image of continuity to my mind, history in images of the people I love. Whenever I make a scrapbook page, I feel like I capture moments in my family’s lives that will never return, therefore scrapbooking is one way that I can hold those moments still. At the same time, I feel like these moments will be re-lived by my children and their children when I will be long gone. 

If I view scrapbooking as work, if someone took it away from me I would feel I am losing my balance. My connection with my daughter wouldn’t be developed on such a deep level, and documenting our memories would lose its essence.