The Africa Institute in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, is an interdisciplinary academic research institute dedicated to the study, research, and documentation of Africa: its people and cultures; its complex past, present, and future; and its manifold connections with the wider world.
As the only institution of its kind located in the Gulf—the historical nexus of African-Arab cultural exchange—The Africa Institute is uniquely positioned to illuminate African and Gulf ties and to expand understanding of African and African diaspora studies as a global practice. Injecting fresh thinking into the existing body of scholarship that largely conceives of the Gulf and Africa as separate entities, The Africa Institute seeks to shed light on important yet overlooked historical linkages that shaped the past and influence present events, including forced and voluntary migratory patterns, market-based economic fluctuations, and local and global political changes.