Rooted in a long tradition of scholarship, African Studies has been under new editorship and the direction of a new editorial board since 1994. With the transformations underway in southern African society and universities, African Studies provides a forum for writing in which metropolitan concerns are transformed and recast in the light of indigenously generated ideas and debates. It also encourages dialogue between scholars writing in and about, different countries in the South.

The end of the academic boycott has facilitated South Africa's re-entry into the field of international scholarship, which has made for a vibrant exchange of ideas between local academics and those from abroad or from other parts of Africa. While mirroring the character of local debate, the journal also aims to contribute to a broader and more international dialogue. To this end, it draws not only on the commitment and expertise of its working editorial board, which is based at the University of the Witwatersrand, but also on a wide range of referees both within and beyond southern Africa.

First published as Bantu Studies in 1921, the journal included among its early editors and contributors many pioneering scholars in anthropology and linguistics: Schapera, Gluckman, Marwick, Mayer, Vilakazi, Rheinallt Jones, Doke, Cole, and Hammond-Tooke. Building on this legacy, the journal now casts its net more broadly and includes history, sociology, politics, geography, and literary and cultural studies