Dr Liesl Peters
I believe we should all be equipped to reach our potential, despite challenges in our contexts that constrain this. Many of the research interests that I have are concerned with how people experience context, and how the context itself creates experiences of marginalisation for people. My area of practice and scholarship is in Community Development Practice (CDP), and part of the research work has been about contributing to how we understand CDP as an area of practice, and how we can better respond to the needs that we face within the South African context. The Occupation-Based Community Development Framework (ObCD) is an offering supporting critical thinking about CDP practice. We have taken on foundational research on human occupation, that’s more located in occupational science that helps us understand the issues and the context which the practice needs to contribute to.
Within CDP, I am particularly interested in youth development, and the issues facing young people in the South African context that continue to impact their prosperity. My doctoral work is focused on the notion of social inclusion, and how young people in this context are using their agency to build lives. My research interests also include transdisciplinary practice, more specifically what decolonial transdisciplinary praxis might look like, and what this might require to address the issues we are facing in communities more effectively. I supervise undergraduate and postgraduate research across a range of topics concerned with occupational justice.
Qualifications:
BSc (OT) UCT,
Msc (OT) UCT,
PhD, UCT.