Across the Red Sea: Historical and Cultural Connections Between Africa and West Asia

In this episode of the WASSAP podcast, hosts Desirée Custers and Hubert Kinkoh are joined by Professor Anne K. Bang, historian at the University of Bergen and a leading scholar of the Indian Ocean world, to explore the historical and cultural connections linking East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.

The conversation challenges the idea of the Red Sea as a barrier between regions and instead presents it as a space of mobility, exchange, and connectivity. Professor Bang explains how maritime trade routes connected coastal communities across the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, facilitating the movement of merchants, scholars, religious leaders, manuscripts, and ideas over centuries. She highlights the role of trade, Islamic scholarly networks, and social relations in shaping interconnected societies on both shores.

Drawing on her research on Zanzibar, Professor Bang discusses questions of identity, belonging, and cosmopolitanism in port cities that have long been embedded in wider transregional networks. She also reflects on how historical patterns of exchange challenge simple centre-periphery narratives and why policymakers and researchers should pay closer attention to the complex identities and longstanding connections that continue to underpin Africa-West Asia relations today.