Where in Africa does Africa start?

Abstract

For the most part, the boundaries of African Studies remain fixed at the shores of that continent, with periodic excursions into diasporic communities across the seas. The northern limits of this enquiry into `Africa' are, however, more vaguely located, placed somewhere in the Sahara when they are thought of at all. This imprecision in the northern frontiers of `Africa' is closely related to traditional conceptions of race on the continent, and especially of a distinction between `Negroid' and `Caucasoid' peoples and histories. Recent genetic research in and to the south of the Sahara suggests that such distinctions are false, and that human biological variability in these regions does not accord with racialized models. Nevertheless, such models continue to be widely used in popular interpretations of events in these regions — most strikingly, today, in Darfur.

The archaeology of Mauritius

“…The differential sex ratios of incoming workers to Mauritius, both slave and labourer, underline the significant context of gender relationships (Allen 1999: 43, 58;Croucher 2007). Finally, the UNESCO World Heritage Site inscription of Le Morne and the influence of Madagascan and African peoples on local cultural heritage establishes another example that highlights the role of Africa in the wider world (Police 2001: 81-110;MacEachern 2007;Seetah 2015a). Although comparisons with East Africa are the most immediately relevant, these should ultimately serve as points of departure for wider, global-level comparative studies that take in differences between landscapes, administrative policy and transitions from slavery, as noted in the Atlantic (Armstrong 2009).…”