In Memorium
Dr. Devva Kasnitz
Dr. Devva Kasnitz is a founding figure in Disability Studies and sociocultural anthropology. Devva trained as a medical anthropologist at The University of Michigan, with postdoctoral work at Northwestern University and at the University of California, San Francisco in health policy and disability in urban and medical anthropology. She worked in disability studies starting in 1979. Kasnitz was on the founding boards of the Society for Disability Studies and the Disability Research Interest Group, and she mentored a generation of disability studies scholars in the US, Australia, and Guatemala. She also directed research at the World Institute on Disability and the Association of Higher Education and Disability.
Aurelia Tittmann
Aurelia was a queer and disabled undergraduate in anthropology and English at Lewis & Clark. She supported the Disabled Anthropologist Oral History Project as a research assistant, worked on the University Grove project that was an experiment in collaborative accessible ethnographic research design, and recorded audio versions of The Disabled Anthropologist and other writings by disabled ethnographers to share with instructors to make their classes more accessible.
Her obituary is here.
Dr. Mark Bookman
Though trained as a historian, Mark participated in early conference conversations with disabled ethnographers about navigating fieldwork. His research was about disability policy and related social movements in Japan. His book, Disability Publics: Making Accessibility in Modern Japan, was published posthumously.
Here is his obituary.