Various newer approaches to the study of diasporas have begun to proliferate. Kim D. Butler (2005), though a historian, eschewed the idea of carrying out the large chronological schematizing attempted by historians of a prior generation, such as Colin Palmer. She proposed shifting the defining element of diaspora studies away from the group itself and instead taking a methodological and theoretical approach to the study of the phenomenon of diaspora in human history. In other words, rather than being viewed as ethnic relationships, alternatively, diaspora may be considered as a framework for the study of a specific process of community formation, by addressing the following: (1) reasons for, and conditions of, the dispersal; (2) relationship with the homeland; (3) relationship with host lands; (4) interrelationships within communities of the diaspora; and (5) comparative studies of different diasporas. This kind of refining and redefining of a discourse allows us to see the different genealogies of African diaspora scholarship and how they manifest in various fields, but above all, how they appear in interdisciplinary African diaspora scholarship.  
Recent thinking on diaspora is beginning to fill a number of exclusionary gaps relating to gender and sexualities, thus expanding the dimensions of how we think about diaspora and our consideration of who is left out. Nevertheless, there remains space for not yet fully explored subjects, such as diaspora and indigeneity, an important yet under-theorized discussion that is also addressed here and that promises to be a growing area of scholarship in the foreseeable future.