Outsider Within presents an approach to critically reconstructing the anthropology discipline to better encompass issues of gender and race. Among the nine key changes to the field that Faye V. Harrison advocates are researching in an ethically and politically responsible manner, promoting greater diversity in the discipline, rethinking theory, and committing to a genuine multicultural dialogue. In drawing from materials developed during her distinguished twenty-five year career in Caribbean and African American studies, Harrison analyzes anthropology’s limits and possibilities from an African American woman’s perspective, while also recognizing similarities between peoples, despite social, cultural, and political differences. In seeking to productively engage anthropologists of diverse geographical, cultural, and national origins, Harrison challenges them to work together to transcend stark gender, racial, and national hierarchies.

Faye V. Harrison is a professor in the African American studies program and department of anthropology, University of Florida, and editor of Resisting Racism and Xenophobia: Global Perspectives on Race, Gender, and Human Rights. In 2004, she won the Society for the Anthropology of North America Prize for Distinguished Achievement in the Critical Study of North America.