Catherine Servan-Schreiber reports on the sociocultural development of the island of Mauritius, characterized by the presence of people from India, China, Europe and Africa. In her chapter, she discusses the narrative debates concerning the history and cultural identity of the island's residents. To counterbalance a colonial hegemonic narrative that denies African traditions on the island, Servan-Schreiber examines texts in the local black literary tradition and musical styles such as sega, seggae, and chutney.  
Leaving the Indian Ocean and moving towards the Atlantic Ocean, we arrive in the Mediterranean. We are guided by Salah Trabelsi, who explores Berber, Nubian and Sudanese soldiers' participation in the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the seventh century onward. The author proposes a pluralist history that goes beyond simplistic and dualistic categories: blacks/ whites, enslaved/free, East/West, Islam/Christianity. Using Arabic and Latin chronicles as sources, the author breaks the silence on African soldiers' participation in the conquest. He points out that, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, large numbers of women, children and men moved between the two shores of the Mediterranean basin, merged with Arabo-Spanish society and greatly contributed to its development.  
Isabel de Castro Henriques deals with the African diaspora in Portugal from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century. This diaspora was associated with the slave trade, in which Portugal played an important role. In her chapter, de Castro Henriques highlights African integration into Portuguese society, where mestizos became numerically significant. She shows that Africans and Afrodescendants used strategies to resist and to integrate into their new social environment. For the author, syncretism took place in Portugal; although new religions were not created, certain religious codes, both European and African, were modified. She points out that black confraternities and the