Allies & Obstacles

Pamela Block

Professor of Anthropology, Western University

Pamela Block is Professor of Anthropology at Western University in London, Ontario, where she moved after many years teaching disability studies at Stony Brook University in New York. Her research and teaching sit where disability studies, anthropology, and occupational science meet, with a long-standing interest in disability activism, community, and the histories of institutions.

Pam is part of the autism community, and her family is at the heart of this work: she credits her mother, Barbara Kilcup, a special education teacher and parent advocate, and her sister Hope Block as the reasons she undertook Allies and Obstacles.

She is co-author of Allies and Obstacles, co-editor of Family and Disability Activism, and co-editor of Occupying Disability: Critical Approaches to Community, Justice, and Decolonizing Disability.

Research

Selected publications

Inside Occupying Disability

Springer, 2016, edited by Pamela Block, Devva Kasnitz, Akemi Nishida, and Nick Pollard. Every chapter and its authors, grouped by the book’s three parts. Chapter titles link to the chapter on Springer.

Part 1 Decolonizing Disability 9 chapters
  1. 1

    Occupying Disability: An Introduction

    Pamela Block, Devva Kasnitz, Akemi Nishida, and Nick Pollard

    3–14
  2. 2

    Krips, Cops and Occupy: Reflections from Oscar Grant Plaza

    Sunaura Taylor, Marg Hall, Jessica Lehman, Rachel Liebert, Akemi Nishida, and Jean Stewart

    15–29
  3. 331–45
  4. 447–61
  5. 563–82
  6. 683–95
  7. 797–114
  8. 8

    Artistic Therapeutic Treatment, Colonialism & Spectacle: A Brazilian Tale

    Marta Peres, Francine Albiero de Camargo, José Otávio Pompeu e Silva, and Pamela Block

    115–125
  9. 9127–141
Part 2 Disability and Community 8 chapters
  1. 10145–157
  2. 11159–174
  3. 12175–194
  4. 13195–207
  5. 14209–223
  6. 15225–233
  7. 16235–245
  8. 17247–256
Part 3 Struggle, Creativity and Change 9 chapters
  1. 18259–272
  2. 19273–277
  3. 20

    Occupying Disability Studies in Brazil

    Anahi Guedes de Mello, Pamela Block, and Adriano Henrique Nuernberg

    279–293
  4. 21

    Black & Blue: Policing Disability & Poverty Beyond Occupy

    Leroy F. Moore Jr., Tiny aka Lisa Gray-Garcia, and Emmitt H. Thrower

    295–318
  5. 22319–329
  6. 23

    Surviving Stevenage

    Roy Birch, Ann Copeland, Geoff Clarke, Neil Hopkins, Rosie Berry, Richard J. N. Copeland, STL, Bruce James, CYNTH, Paul Evans, Darren Messenger, Lucia Birch, and Andrew H. Smith

    331–346
  7. 24347–358
  8. 25359–368
  9. 26

    Science (Fiction), Hope and Love: Conclusions

    Pamela Block, Devva Kasnitz, Akemi Nishida, and Nick Pollard

    369–375