My research focuses on everyday life of people living in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas and how health and participation is shaped by broader social, economic and historical forces.
I am an occupational therapist specialized in Mental Health and Human rights with more than 20 years of clinical and educational training and experience in Latin-America, Sweden and other international settings. A common thread during my clinical, educational and research experience has been my interest in populations exposed to conditions creating vulnerability and marginality and in shifting the attention towards the ethical demands these issues present. My work is grounded in a profound and personal commitment to equity, acknowledging that health and social participation is deeply rooted in social, economical and historical conditions.
My current area of research is about everyday life and vulnerability, particularly experienced by people living in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas and subjected to reinforcing stereotyping discourses. I draw on critical and interpretative theoretical perspectives to problematize everyday life and what is often taken-for-granted in order to generate reflection forums about possible transformative practices within social and health care services. Methodologically my interest is in qualitative methods and in particular in building collaborative practices between research, educational settings and stake- and powerholders. I draw on various methods including narrative, ethnography, dialogical inquiry, critical discourse and photovoice and other methodologies. The principle focuses of
my research is to: (1) identify relevant hinders for inclusion in society and healthcare arenas, and (2) to contribute both theoretically, practically and methodology to contribute to the abody of knowledge concerned with humanistic healthcare. I am currently the leader of the international research network “Moving people” that assembles the competences and perspectives of health care professional and social scientists.Internationally I have experience with European Union founded project Erasmus+ (2018-2020) called Interact. This initiative focused on the creation of European networks of best psychosocial practices for refugees.
I serve as chair of the examination board and a faculty member for the European Master of Science in Occupational Therapy. The core of my teaching is health professional education, particularly transformative learning, intersectionality, professional reasoning, and critical reflexivity. I supervise undergraduate, master's, and doctoral students, with projects focusing on the intersections between migration, citizenship and everyday life. I teach epistemological foundations of qualitative research, narrative epistemology, ethnography and decolonizing qualitative methodologies. My focus on the internationalization of the curriculum follows equity, internationalization at home and societal responsiveness.