When we were invited to guest-edit a volume of African Theatre on the topic of ‘Diaspora’, our first brain-storming session resulted in the idea of paying tribute to, but also moving beyond the usual conceptual and theatrical ‘suspects’: the dispersal and displacement of African-descended peoples, the historical narratives of slave trade and the transatlantic middle passage; black (US) American and Caribbean performance forms. A lot of interesting work has come out on African-American and African-Caribbean theatre [for some recent examples see Harrison et al. (2002); Theatre Journal 57.4 (2005); Women & Performance 16.1 (2006); Performance Research 12.3 (2007)], but equally exciting have been new ways of thinking about ‘Diaspora’ in general, and the African diaspora in particular, which has broadened the discussion in terms of geographical focus and critical thinking. The emergence of several new journals, such as African and Black Diaspora and African Diaspora (both launched in 2008), attests to the importance of, and growing interests in charting a multiplicity of African diasporic movements in time and space (Schramm 2008: 1), thereby dismissing any residual notion (if any) of the African diaspora as a single imagined community with monolithic cultural expressions (cf. African Diaspora). Increasing emphasis has been placed on the transnational connections of diaspora, while new critical paradigms address experiences that do not easily fit into the ‘grand diasporic narratives’, to borrow from Jayne Ifekwunigwe (2003: 56), which account for many, but not all, African diasporic experiences, past and present.