Shame – Rupture – Becoming: Resisting complicity in oppression in occupational science

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ABSTRACT Shame, a deeply unsettling affect, influences many aspects of daily life and occupations. In this paper, we propose that shame can drive socially transformative scholarship in occupational science. We use Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of ‘minor’ and ‘major’ to explain how shame appears in power relations. Minor shame is experienced by marginalized groups (disabled, Indigenous, psychiatrized, queer, racialized, etc.), who often lack status or recognition. Major shame occurs when individuals recognize their complicity in oppression, seeing themselves as similar to those who dominate and harm others. This realization can cause a rupture, either leading to social inertia, silence, and isolation, or provoking a ‘becoming’—a process of connecting with others and fostering a desire for social change. An occupational perspective shows how human-caused atrocities must be collectively resisted through embodied experiences. Mobilizing affects like major shame can support the development of equity and justice work in occupational science. As a field rooted in settler colonialism, occupational science has a responsibility to address its complicity in these matters.