# Epistemological lessons  
Epistemology concerns the creation and dissemination of knowledge in particular areas of inquiry (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2005).  
Although trade and slavery played a key role in the mass migration of Africans in both westerly and easterly directions, the pushes and pulls, the hostland experiences and the rapidity of social mobility and acculturation in Asia differ from those of the Atlantic. The Afro-Asian diaspora cannot be viewed through the transatlantic lens. The conceptual framework for AfroAsians should take into account the nature of the demand for forced migrants, the activities migrants performed in the hostlands, the rate and extent of migrants' social mobility, their achievements, the extent of their acculturation or integration, their marginalization and the role of their intangible heritage.  
Afrodescendants are claiming their heritage and negotiating a new identity as they emerge from the peripheries. Journalists, photographers, filmmakers and academics have been active agents in bringing their presence to the fore. The key to unlocking demands for recognition is historical knowledge of past events,  
crimes and atrocities. This is bound up with human rights agendas. Recognition is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the development of marginalized Afro-Asian communities.  
Empowered Afro-Asians are important drivers in the process of rectifying past injustices. Diasporists' narratives of their silenced histories play a crucial role in building a picture of what happened on the other side of Africa.  
The crucial message is that the well-known pitiful story of the Atlantic African diaspora should not be imposed on the African diaspora in Asia. Most importantly, the agency of diasporists and the rapidity of social mobility for some Africans in Asia sets the eastward diaspora apart, particularly in the subcontinent.