Outsider-within

The concept of the outsider-within has been developed most fully by Patricia Hill Collins. Two of Collins's works, Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice (1998) and Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (1990), are considered by many to be classics of feminist theory. In these works, Collins explores the unique social location of black women as a historically situated group, and explores the power relations inherent in the construction of knowledge that help influence a notion of critical theory. This is part of one of the broader themes found in both texts—that knowledge is inextricably connected to power. Collins analyzes social theory in this context and notes that “[f]ar from being neutral, the very meaning and use of ...