While voluntary, forced, and induced migrations of Africans (Boyce Davies, 2008) have created communities of African-descended populations everywhere in the world, the study of their histories, survivals, cultural formations, reinterpretations, transformations, current economic and social realities, commonalities and differences continues to fuel the field of African diaspora studies. Central to all of these examinations, although less a focus historically, is how blackness and/or Africanity is defined. Contemporary theoretical discussions are moving beyond any overarching definition of blackness and Africanity, even as the search for commonalities and relationships continues as  
a series of political projects. The research is revealing specificities of place, ethnic variations, linguistic variability and meaning, and continuing intersections with other related identities, thereby producing new formations. A few trends are observable in the recent scholarship, among them: how race and ethnicity inflect diasporas; the shifting meanings of blackness historically and in the contemporary period; and the ways gender, class and sexuality intersect and thereby expand and redefine our understandings of diaspora.