The people who voluntarily and involuntarily moved from the African continent, whether from the Mediterranean coast, East Africa or the Atlantic coast, belonged to different cultural systems. They spoke different languages, were subjects under various rulers and were members of dynamic, complex societies with more or less rigid hierarchies. The studies presented in this volume carefully consider all these factors when discussing African diasporic experiences. The large number of books and articles produced and congresses and other academic activities carried out in this field of study have shown that overarching, universal theories do not account for the dynamic realities of the African diasporas.  
The mapping of African diasporas presented here represents a collective attempt to describe how Africans have been integrated into world history, how Africans and Afrodescendants have constructed their identities and their destinies against great odds, and how, in doing so, they have reshaped global history. In addition to the concept of diaspora, this volume looks at the broader concept of Global Africa, moving far beyond the English-speaking black Atlantic to connect different regions inside Africa with the outside world, namely, places in Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean, Oceania and the  
Pacific. The idea here is to counter the tendency to see the African diaspora exclusively as an Atlantic phenomenon, a tendency even marked by a Northern Atlantic bias (Gilroy, 1993).