Dear SMA Community,
It is with great sadness that we learned of the passing of Devva Kasnitz, a guiding light in disability studies, one of the founders of the Society for Disability Studies and co-founder of the Disability Research Interest Group (DRIG) of the Society for Medical Anthropology. A fuller obituary will be published, but we would like to share the words of Prof. Lenore Manderson:
“I can’t imagine the universe without Devva in it. She contributed so much to our world in so many ways, encapsulating chutzpah and meshuggener as truly positive terms – she was disruptive, proud, and persistent. She encapsulated tenacity, grit, bravery, resilience, and hardiness. Without her, disability studies and anthropology would not have met as such a vibrant field of study. Without her, far fewer anthropologists would be working on questions around ability and social exclusion. Without her, steps towards accommodating people for whom normative interactional styles are problematic would be ignored. Without her, we would be far less mindful of the fluidity of social and physical ways in which lives are disrupted. And without her we would never be so outraged by the ways in which truly brilliant people are excluded for simple reasons that reflect on us, not her. Devva was exceptional.”
