Anna Rajala - 30 DoS - Day 30
Tell us a little about your current work and study, especially how you think and practice critically
I’m currently working as a researcher in politics at Tampere University, Finland. The premise of the research project I’m involved with is critical. It studies the claim that capitalism is in crisis. The project seeks to respond to the calls to reconceptualise and retheorise capitalism in International Relations, International Political Economy, and Social Sciences more broadly. The subproject I’m a part of analyses “demented subjectivity” critically, both as a challenge to the idea of the neoliberal self-choosing subjectivity of political science, and to the understanding of the economy as monolithically capitalist rather than diverse in dementia rehabilitation research. Critique is not, of course, about pessimistically saying “no” to everything, as if already in defeat, but rather a commitment to taking a long and uncoerced look at the object of your study.
What is it about critical physiotherapy that appeals to you?
Physiotherapy will always be a part of me despite moving away from clinical work. The CPN offered me the first community in which I felt like I wasn’t alone with my thoughts. It really is important to find that community in order not to feel discouraged to be critical.
What do you bring to the CPN?
I’m currently on the Executive Committee and have been sharing the chairing duties with Dave for nearly two years. I hope that I have brought useful ideas for discussion and contributed to ways of developing CPN further.
How would you like to see critical physiotherapy community develop over the next few years?
I would like to see the CPN community become tighter knit, although I realise it is not always easy to foster the sense of community online. There are a lot of good things that the CPN has done (such as the online courses) that have built a sense of community, and I would like to see them continue. I’m sure there are many other exciting things that we could do. We are always open to suggestions!
How would you like to see the broader physiotherapy profession develop?
The profession is already developing away from a quick-fix-culture towards understanding physiotherapeutic problems as more-than-physical, and even more-than-human. The world we live in is a complex, rhizomatic mess of living and non-living things, and in such a world the simplest explanation is not always the right one (i.e. Ockham’s razor is often too blunt). Another development I would like to see is to broaden our conceptual and theoretical understanding so that we might learn to tolerate messiness instead of opting for simplifying theoretical frameworks. Simplifying theories are not practical if they end up brushing exactly those complex and difficult issues that need to be discussed under the rug.