I Was Never Alone or Oporniki

I Was Never Alone showcases the power of performance ethnography to rise up to anthropology's greatest challenges: to co-produce ethnographic knowledge that is non-extractive, collaborative, relevant, effective, responsible, and just. This is a wonderful book that joins the growing field of experimental and multimodal anthropology; it is compelling, accessible, teachable, and world-opening as it moves across genres of representation and engagement, including ethnographic argumentation, play script, field notes, photographs, and classroom exercises. We see not only what it means to 'crip theater, ' but what it looks like to share power in the production of engaged anthropology.

- Debra Vidali, Emory University

Cassandra Hartblay's I Was Never Alone is among the most important publications in disability studies that attends to the multiple and contested meanings of disability and impairment in a specific location. Hartblay's ethnography of disability in northeastern Russia encourages us to interpret the social and built environment around us in critical and generative ways; the limitations as well as the potential that she traces in the region should encourage all readers to imagine new, varied, and critically crip futures.

- Robert McRuer, George Washington University

Located at the intersection of disability studies, performance studies, and cultural anthropology, Casandra Hartblay's I was Never Alone or Oporniki presents a startlingly original approach to what the author labels 'disability expertise.' The book amplifies the collective work of producing creative theater. The voices, theatrical grit, and cultural specificity of people with disabilities in Russia resonate off the page, opening up new channels of understanding and action.

- Rayna Rapp, New York University