Connie Sutton was a pioneer of Caribbeanist anthropology and a political and social activist who advocated for racial and gender justice internationally. Her scholarship raised broad questions about positionality in colonial studies and challenged male-centric authorial voice in "writing culture" more generally. She was committed to collaboration and collectivity, and to highlighting the scholarship of working-class people, women, people of colour, Caribbean and Latin American scholars, and early students of transnational migration - perspectives that have often been ignored and erased within mainstream anthropology.

In Changing Continuities, 14 of Sutton's essays are reproduced across the broad themes of Caribbeanist Anthropology, Feminism and Black Women's Power, and Transnationalism, which also include some 12 reflections by scholars who highlight the essays' significance to their own work and to the field as a whole.