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 the term social theory represents a contested terrain” (1998:ix).

Attending a predominately white school, and being black herself, Collins came to understand what it was like to be on the “inside” and yet still remain an outsider. Although her concept of an outsider-within has grown and changed over time, the core of the idea has always remained the same. Originally, the term was used to describe the location of individuals who find themselves in the border space between groups; that is, who no longer have clear membership in any one group. Collins disliked this usage, however, as she felt it reduced the concept to an identity construct that too closely resembled the “marginal man” found in early sociology. In more recent years, Collins has used this term to “describe social locations or border spaces occupied by groups of unequal power” (1998:5). These locations contain a number of contradictions for the individuals who occupy them. They appear to be members of the more powerful group because they have the necessary qualifications for and surface level rights of member standing. However, this does not necessarily mean that they have all of the real rights and privileges afforded to formal members. Collins uses African Americans in the United States as exemplars of this situation; they have citizenship rights but they are often treated as second-class citizens.

In addition to the definition cited previously, Collins's concept of the outsider-within also states that “[u]nder conditions of social injustice, the outsider-within location describes a particular knowledge/power relationship, one of gaining knowledge about or of a dominant group without gaining the full power accorded to members of that group” (1998:6). In Fighting Words, Collins points out that it is the multiplicity of oppressions that help distinguish the knowledge developed from an outsider-within location from the knowledge of both elite locations and oppositional locations. She uses the term “hidden transcripts” from the work of James Scott to describe the type of information that is granted only to members inside of a group (1998:7).

Collins's search for justice begins with a group-based approach. Although she recognizes the importance of individuals, she views justice as something that can only be achieved on a group level. This is not to say that Collins wishes to make broad generalizations about groups of people. Quite the contrary, she advocates focusing on the unique social location of individuals based on the intersection of their various social positions (class, gender, race, sexual orientation, etc.). However, she argues that without a sense of a collectivity, a critical social theory that expresses the realities confronting a particular group cannot exist.

...