Connecting the Anthropology of Aging and Occupational Therapy/Occupational Science: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Patterns and Meanings of Daily Occupation

As highlighted by funding priorities articulated in the National Institutes on Health (NIH) Roadmap (2003), collaborations across disciplines represent today’s intellectual life at the cutting edge. Gerontologists, and gerontological anthropologists in particular, are well-positioned to advocate for and assist in the development of innovative models of interdisciplinary scholarship, given our long-standing tradition of working across disciplinary lines in the attempt to understand aging in all its complexity. Anthropologists of aging who work within the anthropology–occupational science/occupational therapy (anthro-OT) intersection are well-versed in addressing these issues. Past Society for Medical Anthropology President Marcia Inhorn (2007) identified the intersection between anthropology and occupational therapy/occupational science (the scientific discipline that informs the application or practice of occupational therapy) as one of the ten most promising areas for future research, and that intersection represents one of the primary foci for the 2009 SMA conference, “Medical Anthropology at the Intersection: Celebrating 50 Years of Interdisciplinarity. ” In this AAQ special issue, we highlight recent dialogue between the fields of anthropology, gerontology and occupational science/therapy to gain a more nuanced understanding of the everyday experiences or “occupations ” of aging and to convey the “lived experiences ” of confronting the challenges entailed in conducting interdisciplinary work. This special issue contains overviews of papers presented in the conference session: “Aging and Activity: Patterns and Meanings of Daily Occupation, ” presented at the 2007 American Anthropologica