Bailly

Aldrich, Rebecca M., et al. "Resource seeking as occupation: a critical and empirical exploration." AJOT: American Journal of Occupational Therapy, vol. 71, no. 3, 2017. Academic OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=j043905010&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA493275240&it=r&asid=6c9de3b2f3d5d30be9092d97fcd89939.

A very pivotal part of our society today is the social gap between the wealthiest and the poorest. Hence, the profession of occupational therapy needs to adapt to accommodate people struggling in this imbalance of financial power. After reading this article, I can begin to see how occupational therapy will encompass more than just mental illness and physical disability. Should I pursue this field, I will encounter many patients who need occupational therapy not to address their disability, but to address their societal disadvantage. With the gap between wealthy and poor individuals increasing, I need to start performing more research regarding the psychology of the poor or lower class people in order to learn how to address their issues in the field of occupational therapy.

The article explains a case study of a woman who realized that she needed to exaggerate the extent of her poverty in order to keep receiving the charity support that she needed in order to care for her children. Cases like this reveal to me the fact that even within the lower economic class, there is a huge range of struggle, and every person has a unique situation and would require different therapy techniques if they were to receive occupational therapy. A person in a situation such as the one this woman is in can be considered as participating in the occupation of “resource seeking.” This “occupation” is controversial in its definition because many people look down upon those who rely on welfare and volunteer workers to maintain their livelihood. However, this fact only furthers my realization that I need to not only research the psychological disorders of occupational therapy, but I also need to consider the psychological processes that lead an individual into the situation of needing occupational therapy.

Also, this article has helped me to develop my goal of pursuing a course of occupational therapy that meets the needs of every possible patient, no matter their situation in life. The areas that occupational therapy has traditionally addressed mainly focus on the needs of the relatively wealthy middle class. However, I now know that I need aim my studies in this field towards social class structure and how people end up in the situations that they are in in order to meet the needs of people in all classes.

The new information that I have gained does not easily synthesize with what I have previously discovered regarding my topic because it redefines the concept of an “occupation.” I originally thought that an occupation was any formal activity that a person participates in typically to make money to support themself or their family, but I now understand that an occupation can be any activity, formal or informal, that allows a person to maintain livelihood. I will use this new definition of “occupation” to adjust the realm of thinking that I use to address the extent to which every person qualifies for therapy.

Overall, I will utilize this information going forward to adjust my expectations regarding both the definition of what is considered an occupation and what types of therapy people in different ranges of the social class spectrum will require. I look forward optimistically with this new insight as I begin to understand the true vastness of the career field of occupational therapy.

Occupational therapists and occupational scientists are committed to generating and using knowledge about occupation, but Western middle-class social norms regarding particular ways of doing have limited explorations of survival occupations^[a]. This article provides empirical evidence of the ways in which resource seeking constitutes an occupational response to situations of uncertain survival. Resource seeking includes a range of activities outside formal employment that aim to meet basic needs. On the basis of findings from 2 ethnographic studies, we critique the presumption of survival in guiding occupational therapy documents and the accompanying failure to recognize occupations that seem at odds with self-sufficiency. We argue that failing to name resource seeking in occupational therapy documents risks alignment with social, political, and economic trends that foster occupational injustices. If occupational therapists truly aim to meet society's occupational needs, they must ensure that professional documents and discourses reflect the experiences of all people in society.

Not all occupations have identifiable or universal names (Hocking, 2009), despite early occupational science assertions that occupations "can be named in the lexicon of our culture" (Clark et al., 1991, p. 301) according to "the purposes they serve in enabling people to meet environmental challenges^[b]" (Yerxa, 1993, p. 5). As practitioners and scholars who aim to promote occupational engagement and occupational justice, we have a responsibility to question why certain occupations are not named in our discourses. Schon and Rein (1994) suggested that "naming and framing" phenomena help make sense of problematic situations because names afford visibility, value, and expectations. Failing to name an occupation may thus signify a lack of awareness of an occupation, a perceived lack of importance attributed to an occupation, or a decision to not address social or political issues related to an occupation.^[c]

In recent years, occupational therapy and occupational science scholars have critiqued how occupations^[d] are categorized (Aldrich, McCarty, Boyd, Bunch, & Balentine, 2014; Hammell, 2009a, 2009b; Jonsson, 2008) and made visible in research and published literature (Hocking, 2012; Kiepek, Phelan, & Magalhaes, 2014). In this article we continue these trends by discussing an occupation that remains unnamed and unaddressed in occupational therapy: resource seeking. We appraise the social and political circumstances that have made resource seeking an increasingly common yet unnamed North American occupation. Our goal is to raise awareness and articulate how practitioners and scholars might address the necessity of resource seeking^[e] as an indicator of occupational injustice.

North American societies are structured around work, and most adults are expected to spend much of their time working (Stone, 2003). As a result, work becomes a primary source of many adults' identities (Unruh, 2004), and people without paid employment are positioned as undeserving of the merit attributed to people who work (Cottle, 2001). These social conditions have shaped the notion of work in occupational therapy (Harvey-Krefting, 1985), and the profession has had difficulty straying from normative ideas surrounding employment (Hammell, 2009a). Thus, although work can be broadly conceived as any "activity that supports the survival of oneself and one's family" (Dickie, 2003, p. 251), occupational therapy practice views paid employment as the archetypal work occupation^[f] (American Occupational Therapy Association [AOTA], 2014, pp. S20-S21). Yet survival--a primary function of work income--can be achieved through a variety of activities. People may garden, barter, hunt, fish, manufacture, sell, invest, steal, work for wages, or turn to governmental and nongovernmental social services to support their lives. Multiple income strategies across formal and informal economies are common in most households (Dickie, 1998; Halperin, 1990; Leonard, 2000).

Dickie (1998) commented that "the idea that people work for money [emphasis added]" (p. 117) was strangely absent in occupational therapy texts, and she called for more attention to broader economic activities in clients' lives. Despite that call, contemporary occupational therapy practitioners are still unlikely to describe work as inclusive of the process of resource seeking, defined as a range of activities focused on securing income supplements, goods, and services to meet basic survival needs. Resource seeking may be perceived as antithetical to work because its necessity increases when people cannot primarily be self-sufficient through socially approved mechanisms of making money^[g]. People who engage in resource seeking are often marginalized because of their nonpreferred ways of sustaining individual and family survival.

Perhaps because of the stigma surrounding government entitlement programs that guarantee income or resources to certain people, resource seeking has not received much attention in the occupational therapy and occupational science literatures. This lack of attention continues a pattern in the profession and discipline of neglecting occupations that seem at odds with mainstream ways of doing and being^[h] (Kiepek et al., 2014). Other fields have investigated resource-seeking activities (Dominguez & Watkins, 2003; Edin & Lein, 1997; Gonzalez de la Rocha, 2001) without explicit reference to occupation. Occupational therapy scholars have begun to bridge this gap by focusing on how people with disabilities negotiate social service systems. Magasi's (2012) research illuminated the "unnoticed" complexity of the ways in which people with disabilities identify, obtain, and organize formal social services such as income and housing supports. According to Magasi, recognizing service system negotiation as a skilled occupation "can challenge stereotypes of people with disabilities as passive beneficiaries of support" (p. S30) and "help de-stigmatize service use" (p. S31). Although Magasi's work lays an important foundation for exploring contemporary resource seeking, a more expanded focus beyond people with disabilities and the acquisition of formal social services is necessary.

Economic trends ^[i]have influenced wider needs for and availability of formal and informal resources for survival (Duck, 2012; Gonzalez de la Rocha, 2001). Higher rates of unemployment and underemployment and longer durations of unemployment have plagued North America since the 2008 economic recession (Kosanovich & Sherman, 2015; Statistics Canada, 2013), fostering greater numbers of people engaging in resource seeking^[j]. Accordingly, it is essential to extend occupational therapy's budding focus to the vast numbers of people without disabilities who are unemployed, precariously employed, underemployed, or living on fixed incomes^[k]. Recognizing widespread needs for resources may help reduce associated stigma (Loewenberg, 1981) by situating this survival occupation as relevant for people with diverse abilities and life conditions. Likewise, focusing on formal social service system negotiation is too limited to encompass contemporary survival efforts. In the United States, formal social programs such as unemployment insurance, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program work in concert with informal, community-based resources such as food pantries, utility assistance, and medication programs to facilitate survival. People also create webs of support among family and friends to barter or trade for resources during difficult times^[l] (Dominguez & Watkins, 2003; Halperin, 1990; Stack, 1974). More North Americans may be seeking nongovernmental resources to offset the implications of income insecurity because fewer people have had access to formal social service benefits since the 2008 recession (McKenna, 2015; Mendelsohn & Medow, 2010). These circumstances reveal a need for an occupation-focused understanding of resource seeking that reflects the complexity of contemporary survival needs.

In this article, we use empirical evidence to show how resource seeking is a contingent, transactional, and occupational response to a lack of adequate income. Our illustration focuses on activities that support three of the World Health Organization's (WHO; 1986) prerequisites for health--income, food, and shelter--as well as health maintenance^[m]. Although resource seeking extends beyond these domains, such delimitation allows a fuller discussion of the ways in which resource seeking contributes to everyday survival.

We undertook two studies of unemployment that used a transactional perspective (Dickie, Cutchin, & Humphry, 2006) and a collaborative ethnographic methodological approach (Lassiter, 2005) to provide empirical evidence of resource seeking. A transactional perspective illuminates the complex person-environment relationship (Aldrich, 2008) and is well matched with ethnographic methodologies^[n] that "recognize and appreciate the entire situation of occupation(s)" (Bailliard, Aldrich, & Dickie, 2013, p. 157). To be specific, a transactional perspective helps scholars focus on how problematic situations are resolved through reconfiguring person-environment relations (Aldrich, 2008).

Both studies also used a collaborative methodology based on our commitment to community engagement (Aldrich & Marterella, 2014) and social change (Lassiter & Campbell, 2010). Collaborative ethnography in particular helps redress power imbalances by recognizing research participants' integral role in knowledge generation (Lassiter, 2005). We asked participants to act as consultants who shaped the questions we asked, reviewed findings, and influenced knowledge dissemination. These theoretical and methodological approaches support a critical occupational science approach (Laliberte Rudman, 2015), which, among other things, illuminates assumptions about the social acceptability of particular occupations^[o] (Njelesani, Gibson, Nixon, Cameron, & Polatajko, 2013). Study 1's findings contributed to the explicitly critical orientation of Study 2. Study 2 also drew on governmentality theory (Laliberte Rudman, 2010) to reveal how sociopolitical discourses that define people and activities are taken up, resisted, and transformed.

In both studies we aimed to understand what occupations people are and are not able to do during prolonged joblessness. The first author (Aldrich) completed Study 1 under the third author's (Dickie's) supervision from 2009 to 2010. Study 1 explored the daily occupations of 5 people who were or were at risk of becoming discouraged workers, defined as those who want to work but are not looking for work because they believe they cannot find a job^[p] (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015). Study 1 aimed to answer the following questions: What occupations do discouraged workers engage in during unemployment^[q]? What value do they assign to those occupations, and what function do those occupations serve? How do their occupations fit with formal and informal economic and social activities in the region? The 4 women and 1 man^[r] who participated in Study 1 ranged in age from 21 to 50 yr and came from diverse family and career backgrounds. The first author generated data through multiple participant observations, two to three semistructured 25- to 90-min interviews, and the Occupational Questionnaire time diary (Smith, Kielhofner, & Watts, 1986). To develop a broader understanding of participants' situations, Aldrich also volunteered in a community food pantry during participant observations and interviewed community leaders and staff members from various support organizations. All study activities took place in rural North Carolina and were approved by the University of North Carolina's institutional review board.

The first author and the second author (Laliberte Rudman) completed Study 2 from 2012 to 2013. Study 2 focused on people who were unemployed long term in midsize U.S. and Canadian cities as well as frontline service providers who worked with clients facing joblessness. Study 2 was concerned with how unemployment services manifest sociopolitical values and aimed to answer the following question: What is the relation of social services, sociopolitical policies and discourses, and occupations during long-term unemployment? Four people in two sites (2 women, 2 men, a total of 8 participants) completed one to three 30- to 90-min semistructured interviews, and 7 frontline service providers and program managers completed one to two informal interviews and facilitated observations of service provision processes during the study. Study 2's participants ranged in age from 30 to 65 yr and came from diverse educational, ethnic, and employment backgrounds^[s]. Saint Louis University's and the University of Western Ontario's institutional review boards approved Study 2's method.

We used open and focused coding of interview transcripts, iterative readings of field notes, memo writing and, in Study 2, discursive^[t] (Cheek, 2004; Laliberte Rudman, 2013) and situational analyses (Clarke, 2005; Clarke, Friese, & Washburn, 2015). The discursive analysis used guiding questions to illuminate subject positions, negotiations, and tensions in participants' lives as well as participants' situatedness relative to sociopolitical discourses. Situational maps helped illustrate the human, nonhuman, social, political, cultural, spatial, and temporal elements that constituted situations of long-term unemployment (Aldrich & Laliberte Rudman, 2016). Together, these analytic approaches helped us articulate resource seeking as an occupation.^[u]

The following sections illustrate how people enact resource seeking as an occupational response to particular survival needs. Embedded descriptions of participants demonstrate that resource seeking is not restricted to one kind of person or set of circumstances. These findings illuminate resource seeking as an occupational response to the situation of unemployment rather than generating thick descriptions (Geertz, 1973) of any person's actions. As noted earlier, these findings explore resource seeking in relation to the prerequisites of health as well as to health itself.

The necessity and difficulty of financial survival are underscored by their relation to the WHO prerequisites for health: Financial survival requires securing some form of income, which in turn supports needs for shelter and food.^[v] In both studies, participants (identified with pseudonyms) described how financial survival entailed a complex process of determining what resources existed, where resources were geographically located, and what eligibility requirements controlled access to available resources. The large amount of time participants invested in resource seeking speaks to the learning that is central to the skillful performance of this occupation (Dickie, 2003).

Jeanette^[w] was not accustomed to financial struggles before her extended joblessness in her early 40s. While employed as an insurance assistant, her middle-class lifestyle allowed her to support two children as a single parent; after 2 yr of unsuccessful job applications, Jeanette became unable to make ends meet in rural North Carolina and had to learn how to find resources:

I called places, Salvation Army, and it was, "You'll have
to get in line with the rest of them." I went to Child
Support Enforcement [and they said], "We'll get you a
court date whenever we can; you're just like a million
other people." ... And I called a church, and they have
a huge fund, and they said, "Well, I'm sorry; you live in
[your] county and we only help people in [our]
county." [And at the Department of Social Services],
trying to get my kids on Medicaid and maybe a little
food stamps, [they said,] "No, I'm sorry."^[x]

Jeanette thus learned the limitations on access to seemingly available financial resources, noting that her "unemployment [insurance] is $32 a month too much for food stamps, but if you qualify for food stamps, you can't buy shampoo, cleaning supplies, none of the paper products." Jeanette eventually learned that she could collect groceries from two different food pantries and seek utility or rent assistance from state and community organizations. No guidebook existed to aid Jeanette's resource seeking^[y]: It was only through trial, error, and a great deal of time that she learned where to get help and when she was or was not eligible for services and supports.

Margie, who was also in her early 40^[z]s, had a markedly different experience despite living in the same area of rural North Carolina as Jeanette. When Margie lost her job as a high-finance banker, she took a paid AmeriCorps volunteer position instead of seeking reemployment:

I'm still below the poverty line, even with my unemployment
and the stipend. I'm eligible for food
stamps, housing assistance, pretty much anything that
the federal, state, and local government allows for
poverty-stricken individuals. So I went from a six-figure
income to being below the poverty line. And I still have
the same bills.
^[aa]

Margie commented that "as a VISTA [Volunteers In Service To America] volunteer, I have to maintain living in poverty so that I can relate to the programs that I'm supporting and helping out,"^[ab] and she discovered that the process of seeking resources was "an eye-opening experience. ... I thought financial aid for college was a humbling experience, an experience that was somewhat degrading.... This was probably 25 times worse." Margie estimated that she spent at least 15 hr per month submitting paperwork or attending meetings to maintain her eligibility for unemployment insurance, child care assistance, and utility assistance. Although the VISTA program provided volunteers with information on supports and subsidies, Margie still had to learn how to structure her flexible volunteer schedule and earn her supervisor's support so she could maintain her receipt of financial resources.

In Ontario, Canada, Eileen wove together a similar tapestry of financial resources to make ends meet while actively resisting the stigmatized option to "end up on welfare.^[ac]" After losing a full-time "career job" in her mid-40s^[ad], Eileen described herself as "caught in a vicious cycle" of alternating between employment and drawing employment insurance benefits. As an older worker in her 60s, Eileen described being aware of how many weeks of employment insurance she had accrued and using a variety of job search strategies to work long enough to renew her future employment insurance. As she aged, Eileen feared that her ability to survive in this way was increasingly uncertain because her time between contract jobs steadily increased^[ae]. Accordingly, Eileen drew her publicly funded Canada Pension Plan early, which carried a long-term financial penalty but helped her make ends meet in the present. Eileen's daily needs and lingering debt always exceeded her financial means, and she lived with the persistent fear that "I'm not going to have enough to live on" and "I could be 70 and still out there working."

To ensure financial survival, Jeanette, Margie, and Eileen had to learn which elements of their situations matched eligibility requirements of state and community resources. As the following findings illustrate, knowledge of resource eligibility also facilitated one of the primary functions of occupation: achieving and maintaining health (Wilcock & Hocking, 2015).

A single mother in her late 30s^[af], Cindy found it difficult to maintain employment in administrative work because of North Carolina's weak economy and her battles with addiction and depression^[ag]. While she was jobless, Cindy suffered from chronic bronchitis, kidney and urinary tract infections, headaches, and pain from a work-related back injury. Resource seeking became Cindy's primary means of restoring and maintaining her health:

I did realize recently that I could possibly go to the Health
Department, and I haven't done that since I was a baby. That's
another thing if I were to get sick, instead of going to the
hospital. [Hospitals are] not like they used to be: They expect
payment.
^[ah]

Knowing where to get an illness diagnosed for free was only one part of Cindy's resource seeking; she also needed to obtain medications to remedy diagnosed problems. During one kidney infection, Cindy could not afford two prescriptions because "no one can give me $8." As a result, Cindy spent an hour waiting at a local charity to get a voucher from its medication assistance program. For less emergent health needs, Cindy said that she relied on stable resources:

I know I've got to go to [the clinic] and get my assessment
and get my refill because there are no more
refills on that. That's not something I planned ahead; I
just kept saying, "OK, I'm getting lower, I'm getting
lower, I'm going to have to do it." And one morning I
woke up and said, "I need to make that phone call
today."^[ai]

Cindy's attempts to achieve and maintain health involved discerning which resources were available for one-time versus regular use and understanding how resource availability met or failed to meet her particular needs at any given moment.

Kevin, also recovering from a work-related back injury, had spent most of his 30s navigating resources in the Ontario area after going "2 years trying to get an MRI to find out ... that I had a crushed spine^[aj]." Although Kevin had lost his workers' compensation benefits, he perceived an advantage to being on a different form of social welfare called Ontario Works:

For the 5 years I was on workers' comp, rarely would
you see me leave my house. [Investigators] literally--they
will follow you around. They'll go knock on your
neighbor's doors, and they'll start asking questions.
And the next thing you know, if you're out carrying a
loaf of bread from the grocery store, they say, "Oh,
well, you must be okay." So I never went out; I never
did anything.^[ak]

For Kevin, seeking health resources entailed figuring out how to adjust his occupational routines to demonstrate his worthiness of support. He noted that "[People are] looking at you ... well, then of course I lift up my shirt and show them my lower spine and they just kind of [say], 'Oh, okay.'" As a result of needing to be believed, Kevin's "focus wasn't on where I was going to be. At that time, I was trying to deal with the present issues at hand and dealing with doctors."

Procuring and Preparing Food: Providing Sustenance for Self and Others by Means of Resource Seeking

Participants' diverse strategies for procuring and preparing food offer other examples of needing to understand eligibility requirements while refining and enacting resource-seeking skills. In both studies, securing sustenance entailed negotiating a lack of choice given the "spontaneous and contextually embedded nature" (Galvaan, 2015, p. 40) of resource seeking.^[al]

A 50-yr-old former factory worker in rural North Carolina, Rose shared Jeanette's and Margie's uncertainty about having enough money for rent, groceries, and household items^[am]. Since her most recent layoff, Rose had developed a complex system to ensure her family had enough food to eat. On the basis of her household income, Rose qualified for food stamps as well as twice-a-month allocations from two food pantries. Food pantry workers determined what grocery items she received, but Rose said that decreased choice inspired creativity, noting that "we have come up with some creative meals that you wouldn't think about fixing, but they turn out to be really good.... We take macaroni and cheese and put tomatoes in it, brown some hamburger and put it in there^[an]." Although her food pantry allocations were balanced across food groups, Rose occasionally received food that she did not want or need, and she donated those items to an informal food pantry at her apartment complex. Rose also shared purchased groceries with neighbors, ^[ao]noting that "meat products are wrapped individually, but then they are wrapped together.... I had one bag I didn't need, so I gave them to a neighbor and she cooked what she wanted and gave the rest to another neighbor." Rose's community context affected the ways in which she sought and used food resources: The amount of food available at food pantries and the willingness of neighbors to trade and barter prompted spontaneity and creativity in her efforts.

Denise engaged in a similar process of seeking food resources but did not have the luxury of food stamps. Denise and her husband were both in their late 40s and struggling to survive since facing a brief period of homelessness in Ontario. To offset food costs, Denise identified the locations offree church meals in her area and used the local library's Internet to "order a lot of coupons online^[ap]." She supplemented those efforts with allocations from a local food bank and carefully budgeted any food purchase. She explained,

I cannot justify making a pot of spaghetti sauce ... it's
just too expensive. I ended up buying four skinless
chicken breasts for like $5.00 and 10 drumsticks for
like $3.00-something. I'm thinking, well, there's two
meals with the chicken breasts and, like, 2 more with
the drumsticks.

Although Denise successfully procured food, it was not necessarily fresh or healthful^[aq]. She observed that "if you go to the food bank, you're getting packaged pastas and stuff, and you're getting canned foods.... It's not necessarily giving you the things that you need to be healthy." Denise also recognized the stigma that accompanied seeking and using food resources, stating, "I'm almost to the point now that I don't care. If [other people] see me, they see me; I don't give a shit. I know that it was hard on the kids.... They're like, 'You don't need to go there.'" Her adult children perpetuated a view of community food resources that Denise herself had once held. Denise emphasized her change in attitude:

Before I had experienced that, that's what I always thought
community meals were: serving [the] homeless....
But being there, I do see a lot of people that are just
more the working poor or the people that have low
income.

Denise's revelation illustrates that resource seeking can be important whether people are with or without work.^[ar]

The above examples show the diverse ways in which resource seeking operates as an occupational response to survival needs. Participants' resource seeking was purposeful, goal directed, contextually shaped, temporal in nature, and connected to health, thus constituting an occupation (AOTA, 2014). Unfortunately, the lack of recognition ^[as]of resource seeking in current occupationaltherapy terminology limits practitioners' abilities to address this occupation. As we noted at the beginning of this article, resource seeking does not fit within accepted definitions of work despite the fact that it helps people survive in ways similar to employment income.

Resource seeking also fails to fit within other occupational categories in the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework: Domain and Process (AOTA, 2014), which "describes the central concepts that ground occupational therapy practice and builds a common understanding of the basic tenets and vision of the profession" (p. S3). For instance, in defining financial management as "using fiscal resources, including alternate methods of financial transaction, and planning and using finances" (AOTA, 2014, p. S19), the Framework does not explain how people like Jeanette, Margie, and Eileen acquire financial resources; instead, it falsely assumes the presence of financial resources as well as people's abilities to plan the use of those resources^[at]. Similarly, the Framework fails to reflect that "developing, managing, and maintaining routines for health and wellness promotion" (p. S19) can be unaffordable luxuries (Tirado, 2014) when daily survival or the need to appear "authentically" ill or injured are considerations. Finally, the Framework definitions do not encompass common food acquisition strategies such as utilizing food pantries and trading groceries with neighbors; instead, existing definitions presume stability beyond what Rose and Denise faced. By starting from an assumption of survival, Framework definitions reveal strikingly little about how occupations provide a means for subsisting across a range of situations.

If occupational therapy and the study of occupation are to be relevant for all people, then it is vital to see how survival occupations^[au] are represented in documents such as the Framework. There is growing recognition that middle-class, White, Western perspectives have contributed to limited and partial conceptualizations of occupation^[av] (Hammell, 2009a, 2009b; Hocking, 2012; Kantartzis & Molineux, 2012). Attending to occupations such as resource seeking is essential to "meeting society's occupational needs" (AOTA, 2006, p. 1) because the tasks that constitute resource seeking--such as using coupons, strategizing purchases, trading items with friends, and using governmental incentives--are common survival strategies. Excluding resource seeking from occupational therapy practitioners' consideration risks perpetuating the assumption that the nature of people's economic activities determines their deservingness of occupation-focused services.

Neoliberal frameworks that prioritize self-reliance and individualize social problems shape the policies and systems within which occupational therapy practitioners operate ^[aw]^[ax](Laliberte Rudman, 2013). Such frameworks exclude occupations such as resource seeking because those occupations may appear to foster dependency and reinforce a lack of self-sufficiency (as defined by Hong, Sheriff, & Naeger, 2009). However, drawing on increased attention to the sociopolitical shaping of occupation (Angell, 2014; Galvaan, 2015; Laliberte Rudman, 2014), occupational therapy practitioners can reframe resource seeking as an occupation that results from policies and economic circumstances (Soss, Fording, & Schram, 2011) rather than from self-sufficiency failures.^[ay] Occupational therapy practitioners can also address resource seeking as part of everyday occupational justice practices (Bailliard & Aldrich, 2016). The need to seek resources accompanies an urgent focus on survival that prevents people from engaging in other valued and meaningful occupations. It is imperative to critique the systems and structures that foster such situations, especially because those situations are disproportionately distributed along markers such as race, gender, citizenship status, and ability and disability ^[az](Vosko, 2010). Occupational therapists can promote more equitable opportunities by framing certain collectives' heightened need for resource seeking as an occupational injustice.

The findings described in this article have the following implications for occupational therapy practice:

* It is important to question implicit understandings^[ba] in documents that guide practice.

* Practice must account for the occupations that meet survival needs instead of relying on assumptions about what is "normal" in everyday life.

* Attending to occupational injustices can occur through critically addressing resource-seeking occupations at individual and societal levels.

Traditional notions of work are culturally determined and often predicated on middle-class experiences of secure employment relations. If such notions continue to provide a reference point for named occupations, there will remain a lack of attention to situations that are not funded by formal employment income. Work-centric definitions are not without merit, but uncritically propagating them when traditional full-time work is becoming less prevalent in society verges on professional irresponsibility.^[bb] Failing to name and attend to the occupation of resource seeking may inadvertently or unintentionally make occupational therapy practitioners complicit with social and policy changes that shape and perpetuate occupational injustices. Recognizing resource seeking within the lexicon of occupational therapy can raise social awareness and support addressing resource seeking within practice and broader social policy.

We thank the consultants and community partners who, through their experiences, helped us develop understandings about the occupation of resource seeking. Study 1 was funded by an American Occupational Therapy Foundation Dissertation Research Grant and a Phi Kappa Phi Love of Learning Award. Study 2 was funded by Saint Louis University's Beaumont Faculty Development Fund. We are grateful for the funding we received to support these studies.

[a]this will be an interesting outlook on OT, evaluating social inequality

[b]these challenges are different in every part of the social hierarchy

[c]this is similar to how people in general feel the need to label every person in order to make their personality make sense to them, however these labels are usually degrading.

[d]does occupation refer to a person's particular job,or just their way of life?

[e]is this a profession? I am confused. That is probably because it is considered "unnamed"

[f]point of view

[g]important thesis: this both defines "resource seeking" and explains how it is unique yet valid

[h]this is why it has not been addressed by OT yet

[i]the increasing gap between the wealthiest and the poorest

[j]this reveals that resource seeking has the same benefits to a person's livelihood as any job should, so it should be considered a job

[k]this will probably still include a wide variety or psychological aspects, even if the people are not actually disabled

[l]by the author's definition, this can be considered an occupation too

[m]therefore, resource seeking is a job because it maintains these essential parts of life

[n]so does this take into account a person's ethnicity and how it may bound their social role?

[o]people will give their direct opinion on their situation and its comparison to the situations of others

[p]is is awful that society holds people like this down; if people are going to get mad at them for doing what they have to do to get out of their situation, don't contribute to putting them in that situation!

[q]this question reveals that occupations and jobs are not the same thing. A person can always have an occupation, even if they are unemployed.

[r]if men and women have different unemployment rates or reasons, this data will be skewed

[s]some are more advantaged than others in the job world, and are less likely to experience unemployment

[t]moving from topic to topic

[u]people end up in this situation for a large variety of reasons, not simply because they cannot find a job

[v]this principle will remain in place no matter the situation or circumstances

[w]pseudonym

[x]it is shocking how reluctant charities that are supposed to help jobless people are to actually helping them

[y]is the article going to proceed to explain how occupational therapy can help her?

[z]people in their early 40s are probably more often jobless because they have just finished the decade of their life fresh out of college.

[aa]so these charities actually people by objectifying them as "poverty stricken"

[ab]this reveals the shocking truth about charity and volunteer programs.

[ac]could occupational therapists help to reduce this stigma?

[ad]what is the correlation?? All of these people are in their mid-40s. Also, they are all women so far

[ae]once she has already been unemployed at some point in her life, people are going to be more reluctant to employ her

[af]the most common people in these situations tend to be single women in their late 30s-40s

[ag]these are also things OTRs can help with, regarding the psychological aspect of the profession

[ah]the thing is, this is only true in a handful of countries, including the US. So many of the nation's welfare problems would go away if we offered free healthcare

[ai]It is such a stressful process trying to barter with volunteer and charity workers

[aj]So many people in this situation have chronic health-related issues, which could be part of the reason they ended up in this situation in the first place

[ak]these organizations are formed to keep people from becoming independent from them

[al]so for instance, I could not be vegan if I were in that situation

[am]Notice how none of these unemployed people are young. Is that because they are still supported by their parents, or what?

[an]once people are able to recover from unemployment, they may be much more creative and productive members of society

[ao]but then she gets even less of the little food she receives

[ap]even people who are in unemployment can rise to higher status with a great amount of work

[aq]this prohibits people's ability to increase societal status

[ar]therefore is is a big demand in the OT industry

[as]because it is considered "unnamed"

[at]OT needs to develop in order to take into account the needs of people of all backgrounds and histories

[au]this article fights that these types of occupations are just as valid and worthy of OT as any regular paying job

[av]what does this mean about how OT services differ in other regions of the world?

[aw]All people no matter their background deserve access to help

[ax]However they disregard people in situations deemed "irresponsible"

[ay]referring to my above comment, people in these situations are NOT irresponsible

[az]disability is something OTRs can help make a societal difference in

[ba]just as explained throughout the article, one must evaluate the definition of occupations such as resource seeking

[bb]we will get nowhere regarding societal inequality if we only focus on helping people in the middle class

	10	8	5	0
Understanding Your score: 10	Throughly describes and paraphrases the information. Thoroughly answers the question "What did you learn?"	Adequately describes and paraphrases the information. Adequately answers the question "What did you learn?"	Somewhat describes and paraphrases the information. Somewhat answers the question "What did you learn?"	Does not describe paraphrase the information. Does not answer the question "What did you learn?"
Applying Your score: 10	Thoroughly applies and illustrates the information. Thoroughly answers the following questions: "Why is this information relevant to you, your learning, your topic, and your ISM journey?	Adequately applies and illustrates the information. Adequately answers the following questions: "Why is this information relevant to you, your learning, your topic, and your ISM journey?	Somewhat applies and illustrates the information. Somewhat answers the following questions: "Why is this information relevant to you, your learning, your topic, and your ISM journey?	Does not apply and/or illustrate the information. Does not answer the following questions: "Why is this information relevant to you, your learning, your topic, and your ISM journey?
Analyzing Your score: 10	Thoroughly analyzes, examines, and breaks down the information. Thoroughly answers the questions: What are the key parts of this information? How can it be classified? Thoroughly connects to prior knowledge and thoroughly explains whether or not the information changed or modified prior knowledge	Adequately analyzes, examines, and breaks down the information. Adequately answers the questions: What are the key parts of this information? How can it be classified? Adequately connects to prior knowledge and thoroughly explains whether or not the information changed or modified prior knowledge	Somewhat analyzes, examines, and breaks down the information. Somewhat answers the questions: What are the key parts of this information? How can it be classified? Somewhat connects to prior knowledge and thoroughly explains whether or not the information changed or modified prior knowledge	Does not analyze, examine, and break down the information. Does not answer the questions: What are the key parts of this information? How can it be classified? Does not connect to prior knowledge and does not explain whether or not the information changed or modified prior knowledge
Synthesizing Your score: 10	Thoroughly synthesizes prior knowledge with new learning to demonstrate continuous growth of knowlege. Thoroughly answers the questions: How can I combine this new knowledge with my prior knowledge in order to facilitate continuous growth? How can I combine all of this information to create a plan to develop my original work?	Adequately synthesizes prior knowledge with new learning to demonstrate continuous growth of knowlege. Adequately answers the questions: How can I combine this new knowledge with my prior knowledge in order to facilitate continuous growth? How can I combine all of this information to create a plan to develop my original work?	Somewhat synthesizes prior knowledge with new learning to demonstrate continuous growth of knowlege. Somewhat answers the questions: How can I combine this new knowledge with my prior knowledge in order to facilitate continuous growth? How can I combine all of this information to create a plan to develop my original work?	Does not synthesize prior knowledge with new learning to demonstrate continuous growth of knowlege. Does not answer the questions: How can I combine this new knowledge with my prior knowledge in order to facilitate continuous growth? How can I combine all of this information to create a plan to develop my original work?
Evaluating Your score: 10	Thoroughly judges/appraises the information. Thoroughly nswers the questions: Was this new knowledge effective in helping me achieve my goals? Was this new knowledge hepful, surprising, encouraging, discouraging, motivating, disagreeable, controversial?	Adequately judges/appraises the information. Adequately answers the questions: Was this new knowledge effective in helping me achieve my goals? Was this new knowledge hepful, surprising, encouraging, discouraging, motivating, disagreeable, controversial?	Somewhat judges/appraises the information. Somewhat answers the questions: Was this new knowledge effective in helping me achieve my goals? Was this new knowledge hepful, surprising, encouraging, discouraging, motivating, disagreeable, controversial?	Does not judge/appraise the information. Does not answers the questions: Was this new knowledge effective in helping me achieve my goals? Was this new knowledge hepful, surprising, encouraging, discouraging, motivating, disagreeable, controversial?
Creating Your score: 10	Demonstrates a clear, detailed, and well-thought-out plan describing what you will do with/as a result of this new learning. Thoroughly answers the questions: How can I blend this new knowledge with previous knowledge to create new ideas? What new questions have arisen as a result of this new information.	Demonstrates a clear and well-thought-out plan describing what you will do with/as a result of this new learning. Adequately answers the questions: How can I blend this new knowledge with previous knowledge to create new ideas? What new questions have arisen as a result of this new information.	Demonstrates a somewhat clear and well-thought-out plan describing what you will do with/as a result of this new learning. Somewhat answers the questions: How can I blend this new knowledge with previous knowledge to create new ideas? What new questions have arisen as a result of this new information.	Does not demonstrate an acceptable plan describing what you will do with/as a result of this new learning. Does not adequately answer the questions: How can I blend this new knowledge with previous knowledge to create new ideas? What new questions have arisen as a result of this new information.
Evidence of Proofrading Your score: 10	No grammatical, spelling, or usage errors.	Very few grammatical, spelling, or usage errors.	Too many grammatical, spelling, or usage errors.	Enough grammatical, spelling, or usage errors that the assessment is borderline incomprehensible.
Proper Heading/Format Your score: 10	All requirements met	Most requirements met	Some requirements met	Few or none of the requirements met.
Professional Tone Your score: 10	Entirety of assessment is written in the appropriate professional tone.	Most of assessment is written in the appropriate professional tone.	Some of assessment is written in the appropriate professional tone.	None of assessment is written in the appropriate professional tone.
Annotated Article Your score: 10	Thoroughly annotated article submitted with assignment	Adequately annotated article submitted with assignment	Somewhat annotated article submitted with assignment	No annotated article submitted with assignment