The Indian Ocean has in recent years emerged as a vital area of study and analysis inviting attention fromhistorians, anthropologists, social scientists and cultural studies scholars. The growing corpus of scholarship on the Indian Ocean has in turn raised issues of methodology and of potentialities for comparative research. The very nature of the discursive as well as the physical space of the Indian Ocean discourages a uni-disciplinary perspective and compels the researcher to consider both an expanded archive as well as a more inclusive paradigmof understanding. Colonialismwas an obvious factor giving unity to the space of the Indian Ocean. Religion was another important field of cohesive interaction. The questions that arise as to the nature and dynamics of these historical and contemporary forms of cohesion are many. How for instance, did migrations and anti-colonial resistance experiences shape modern subjectivities in the Indian Ocean ? How can we meaningfully understand the notion of multi-culturalism in the Indian Ocean ? How were identities forged in the Indian Ocean, and what role did religious, commercial networks and media networks play in this process ? New studies intend to address some of these issues by drawing on emerging analysis of transnationalism, universalism and regimes of circulation in the Indian Ocean, by suggesting new theoretical frameworks for understanding and exploring new methodologies of study.