Abstract
Introductory essay to Global Africa: Into the Twenty-First Century: In this volume, we seek to disrupt narratives that frame the ways many people imagine Africa as both an idea and a place. We begin that task by dispelling the geographical and political division of Africa into North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. These all-too-common distinctions ignore historical and contemporary connections and perpetuate troubling racialized divisions between “Arabs” and “black Africans.” We also challenge those narratives that contain African history and cultures within the continent. In the past, the migration of Africans across the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean Sea helped transform societies in these new locales and on the continent. The cathedral-inspired mosques of the Republic of Benin, for example, exemplify the dynamic relationship between West Africa and Brazil born during the transatlantic slave trade. New African diasporas are emerging as technological developments and shifting global economic powers inspire movement.