Source
Collins (1986), “Learning from the Outsider Within”, Social Problems 33(6): S14–S32, LIT-1312, read in full in NOTE-1042 in the authorized Portuguese translation (Sociedade e Estado 31(1), 2016). The quotations below are the translation’s, with the record’s English gloss.
What was actually shown
The argument has three steps.
- Paradigms make facts. Following Kuhn, facts become significant in the context of theories, and a paradigm has two elements, its thought and its practitioners. Insiders acquire a shared worldview by long immersion (Merton, Schutz).
- Insiders cannot see what they made. Traditional insiders “certamente não estão em posição de perceber as anomalias específicas … pois esses mesmos insiders sociológicos produziram essas anomalias” (are not in a position to perceive the specific anomalies, since they produced them).
- Outsiders cannot press what they see. Black women outside the academy may know the omissions, but “falta-lhes autoridade profissional legítima para desafiar as anomalias sociológicas” (they lack legitimate professional authority to challenge them).
The outsider within has both the sight and the standing. The illustrations are two kinds of anomaly Black feminist sociologists reported, omission of Black women from the facts and distortion of them (the matriarchy thesis), and the revisions they prompted in theories of work and the family.
What could have come out otherwise: the argument predicts that reports of such anomalies come disproportionately from outsiders within and not from insiders of similar training. The paper shows that outsiders within made such reports. It does not show that insiders did not, which is what the promote_when asks for.
What this does not say
- That the outsider within is right. The position makes anomalies visible. Whether a reported anomaly is real is a further question.
- That every outsider within sees them, or that no insider can. The claim is about position, and Collins notes that some outsiders within resolve the tension by assimilating and “pensam como de costume” (think as usual).
- That position is enough for uptake. The standing is professional membership. Whether the discipline takes up what is reported is Longino’s question (THEORY-151) and CLAIM-403’s later rungs.
- That the position is special to Black women. Collins treats them as an extreme case of any less powerful group of outsiders entering a more powerful community of insiders.