African dress has been known for inspiring high fashion, not headlining it. But that might soon change. Dakar Fashion Week, now it its 12th year, brings designers from around the world to celebrate African fashion. Per-Anders Pettersson photographed the event this past June.

Longing for his homeland, Dylan Davies returned to South Africa and staged a series of portraits to reflect his feelings about the country and illustrate its cultural diversity. With made-up names, kingdoms and costumes, Davies sculpted each “princess” with adornments that represented his experiences.

The Central African Republic is “a country where everything is broken,” Michael Zumstein says. The French-Swiss photographer arrived there in September as the country was descending into a steep spiral of sectarian violence.

Photographer Jessica Antola spent February traveling the Ethiopian countryside, admiring the natural beauty of the land. She was blown away by the valleys and mountains with their breathtaking views, but she was ultimately drawn to the people.

In Northern Mali, photographer Ferhat Bouda chronicles the complex, confusing conflict that has entangled al Qaeda-linked jihadists, the Malian army, French-led international forces and the Tuaregs, an indigenous group that has been fighting for independence in the region for decades.

Kyle Meyer, a 28-year-old photographer from Manhattan, discovered a church in the small African country of Swaziland that harkens back to indigenous ancestral worship mixed with Christianity. One of the tenets of religion that isn’t spoken of often, but used weekly, is the practice of exorcisms.

More than 4,500 miles separate the small Finnish village of Kuusamo, where photographer Meeri Koutaniemi grew up, and Kenya’s Maasai villages, where she ended up chronicling the lives of women who had experienced or escaped genital mutilation and child marriage.

In 2009 and 2010, photographer Tadej Znidarcic posed gay Ugandans in front of a crumbling wall, their backs to his camera. When Znidarcic revisited his subjects this year, much had changed. Many of the subjects chose to face the camera – and a society that had criminalized their sexual orientation.