Her research interests include political economy, power, diaspora, human rights, and the intersections of race, gender, and class.
[1] She served as President of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences from 2013 to 2018, a position that allowed her to collaborate with anthropologists around the world.
In her introduction, Harrison emphasizes the importance of reading the work of intellectuals from the Global South and understanding the impact of the intersections of race, class, and gender on cultural consciousness and colonial discourse.
[5] The book was the result of the first invited session from the ABA at an AAA conference, given by Harrison and her colleague Angela Gilliam in 1987, which was also titled “Decolonizing Anthropology.” Harrison credits the work of anthropologists Bernard Magubane and James C. Faris as a key source of inspiration for the session and, later, the volume.
[6] William Conwill has worked towards creating modes of mental health promotion and healing based upon antiracist and antisexist frameworks.
[7] While attending Brown University, Harrison was supported by professors Louise Lamphere and George Houston Bass.
[8] After receiving her bachelors degree from Brown University, Harrison was granted the Samuel T. Arnold Fellowship to continue graduate level research from 1974 to 1975.
[4] While at Stanford, she studied with St. Clair Drake and Bridget O’Laughlin, whom she credits as a major influence on her approach to anthropological and political anti-racist activism.
[1] Harrison was deeply influenced by St. Clair Drake and his understanding of the relationship between anthropology and racial politics as well as the history of Black Anthropologists.
[7] Harrison thought the university was an "excellent place to train graduate students interested in the African diaspora and the intersections of race, gender, and class that shape sociocultural life and political practices".
[9] She has taught courses at the University of Illinois on Key Issues in African American Studies, Africana Feminisms, and Human Rights from Cross-Cultural Perspectives.
[10] Harrison has utilized this methodology to dramatize the anthropological information she aims to share with her students, colleagues and the general public.
[9] Harrison's work has also been included in a number of major anthologies in feminist scholarship and African diaspora studies, including Afro-Descendants, Identity, and the Struggle for Development in the Americas; Transnational Blackness: Navigating the Global Color Line; Women Writing Culture; Afro-Atlantic Dialogues: Anthropology in the Diaspora; Situated Lives: Gender & Culture in Everyday Life; Third World Women & the Politics of Feminism; Gender & Globalization: Women Navigating Cultural & Economic Marginalities; Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean; and perhaps most prominently in Feminist Activist Ethnography.
Decolonizing Anthropology is part of a bigger project aimed at transforming and reconstructing the area in addition to creating a study which concentrates upon this diversity and similarity of people.
[21][22] The essayists in this book write about why they think anthropologists should consider and critique power structures and criticize the culture and politics of academia.
[22] Decolonizing focuses on the use of "data, social and cultural analysis, conceptualizing, and knowledge application methodologies" in ethnographic research to help us curate a clearer understanding of intercultural and international harmony, as well as "global transformation.
This work illustrates how anthropology has played a major part throughout the formation and reconstruction of race, mostly as a cognitive instrument and a social reality.
[24] On the other hand, the high reliance upon ethnicity has largely overlooked racism's persistence and terrible impacts on local communities, nation-states, and the global system.
A notable collection of intellectual biographies is the first to look at the lives of thirteen early African-American scholars who became anthropologists between 1920 and 1955,[25] highlighting both the achievements as well as the overall problems that were mostly implicit and sometimes overt racism of the day.
Outsider Within presents the way towards carefully reconstructing anthropology in aims to discuss gender and race problems in a timely manner.
[28] He believes that full decolonization of anthropology could lead to future anthropologists repeating the scientific racism of the past.
[28] He also criticizes decolonial anthropology for forgetting a central idea of decolonization, that it is impossible to avoid thought shaped by European norms.