Occupational Imprisonment

The NAPA-OT Group

The idea of occupational imprisonment emerged from a discussion of the daily lives of those we are observing here in Guatemala as well as the impoverished in general. Occupational Imprisonment arises when an individual's occupational "need-to-dos", those tasks that we all must participate in to survive (e.g. finding/growing/earning and consuming food and drink, maintaining shelter, sufficient clothing), overburden all other occupational opportunity.

In a sense naming this phenomenon occupational imprisonment is a bit ironic in that many who are currently imprisoned within the penal system are in fact experiencing occupationally deprivation, having little opportunity to participate in meaningful activities, the exact opposite problem I am attempting to describe.

If someone is experiencing this occupational imprisonment, there is little opportunity to diversify the occupations performed by that individual, little room for Miss Frizzle's favorite advice, "Take chances, make mistakes, get messy." For example, an indigenous woman in Guatemala who is responsible for cooking tortillas, cleaning the home, caring for children including getting them to healthcare, weaving to earn an income, pleasing her husband, and abiding by social requirements for community ceremonies has little space or "occupational opportunity" to make progress toward something like women's equality or organizing communities to prevent land loss.

In the same way, a poor ladino man who wakes early to collect firewood for the breakfast fire, works all day in a construction site, returns to his own small rented plot of land to tend his own garden, and works to maintain their small casita has little opportunity to further his education so that he can acquire higher paying and more stable job opportunities. This also occurs in the United States. A homeless man who wakes at 4:00am under a thunderous overpass from a sleep only coaxed into existence through exhaustion works a day labor job all day to pay for his dinner, walking 6 miles to and from the labor office, has neither the energy nor the time to lend toward properly advocating for affordable housing in the urban center.

Because the systems are built in such a way that leaves no room to explore adaptations to these occupations without severe sacrifice and risk, it is nearly impossible for the impoverished to explore potential new methods or technology to increase resources or time. A woman making tortillas will not attempt a new method or a different meal because failure means her family does not eat that day when they need to, so she maintains the routine and never tries to innovate or imagine something different.

Those with the privilege of already having a surplus of technology and resources attempt to step in with NGOs or Non-profits and insert a solution that did not emerge from the people, that was not born of the native culture and customs. Therefore this new synthetic solution doesn't work or at least work well because it did not organically grow from the imaginations and hearts of those who need it. 

The oppressed become imprisoned in an impoverishing routine of their own necessary occupations, leaving no opportunity for imagination and innovation.

Then we, as the privileged, are able to step back, watch the systems and impoverishing routines, and say, "Work harder and you will make it. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and you can be successful. You are poor because you are lazy and not working enough." When in reality they are poor because they can do nothing else but work.