To answer your question, yes you should be able to retrieve the view data.

For instance, given a ContentArea named RightColumnArea and an additional view data with a string named "Placement":

@Html.PropertyFor(m => m.CurrentPage.RightColumnArea, new {Placement = "RightColumn"})

And in your block controller:

public override ActionResult Index(SomeBlock currentBlock)
{
	var placement = ControllerContext.ParentActionViewContext.ViewData["Placement"] as string ?? String.Empty;
	
	string viewName;
	switch (placement)
	{
		case "RightColumn":
			viewName = "RightColumn";
			break;
		default:
			viewName = "Index";
			break;
	}
	
	return PartialView(viewName, currentBlock);
}

That being said, there are other ways to achieve this.
If a block doesn't need any logic it should not have a controller due to performance, if this is your case then have a look at the TemplateCoordinator in AlloyTech.
If you need a controller, you could take a look at the TemplateDescriptor attribute.

Both the TemplateCoordinator class and TemplateDescriptor attribute uses something called Tag, which also makes selecting different views view DisplayOptions possible.

Thanks I'm already using  the TemplateCoordinator for rendering our standard page partials and display options for the different adaptive versions of the blocks. This requirements comes from a necessity to be able to adapt the blocks furthur for dynamic resizing information which needs to be applied through from the view dependant on when the block is used which the additonalViewData seemed perfect for. I'll try your approach and see if it does the job.

Thank you for the help