Convulsions in the Sahel

Speakers for this event

• Abdoulaye Kane

  Abdoulaye Kane

  Associate Professor of Anthropology

  Abdoulaye Kane is an Associate Professor of Anthropology. He is jointly appointed to the Department of Anthropology and the Center for African Studies at the University of Florida. His teaching and research interests are on transnational migration, African diaspora, transnational religious networks, remittances, return migration, and migrants’ WhatsApp groups. His research focuses on the Haalpulaar migrants’ communities in African countries, France and North America and their connections to hometowns in the Senegal River Valley. He investigates particularly the role of Migrants’ Social Networks (both community-based and religious) in the lives of migrants and their sending communities. He has published extensively in French and English on the impact of Migrants’ Hometown Association in providing social services (health, Education, Clean water, Electricity) to the villages and small towns of the Senegal River Valley. He is the co-editor of two books on African migration. 1- African Migration: Patterns and Perspective and 2- Medicine, Mobility and Power in Global Africa with Indiana University Press. He is the editor of the section On the Move: Urbanization, Migration, and Transnationalism in The Handbook of the Sahel, Oxford University Press (2121). He is working two book manuscripts. The First titled Keeping Home in Mind analyses the practices of remittances and return among the Haalpulaar migrants in France and the United States. The second title Transnational Religious Circuits focuses on travel and religious pilgrimage in the transnational lives of leaders and disciples of the Tijani Islamic Sufi order in Senegal. His new project explores the use of WhatsApp groups among Senegalese migrants to enhance their connections with their home communities through new forms of collaborative interventions to solve social and economic problems.

  Associate Professor of Anthropology

• Croshelle Harris

  Croshelle Harris

  USAID Deputy Development Advisor to the U.S. Special Operations Command

  Ms. Harris joined the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2005. She has served as a Program Officer involved in planning, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation of U.S. foreign assistance strategies and development programming in Jordan and in Washington’s Middle East Bureau where she supported USAID Missions in Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. She has also designed, managed and monitored education strategies and technical assistance programming as an Education Development Officer in Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria, South Sudan and Mali. Her portfolios have focused on counterterrorism and countering violent extremism issues as well as strategy development with the Department of State and the Department of Defense. In her current role, Ms. Harris promotes civil-military coordination between USAID and the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). Her two main responsibilities include serving as liaison to USSOCOM’s Directorate of Operations (J3) charged with understanding and coordinating Department of Defense (DOD) activities in the information environment with USAID’s contributions in this arena; and leading outreach and awareness of USAID development priorities to Special Operations Forces (SOF) through staff development briefings and qualifying courses. Ms. Harris started her international career in the Republic of Moldova as a Peace Corps Volunteer (1998-2000) supporting non-governmental organizations in transition from communist rule to independent management and oversight. She later directed Department of State-funded international education and cultural exchange programs between the U.S. and Moldova (2000-2002) that provided high school and university students, researchers, and professors with opportunities in American educational institutions. In 2004, as a Fulbright Fellow in eastern Romania, she taught in the English language department at Ion Creanga University and was an advisor in the U.S. Embassy’s American Center helping Romanian students identify and prepare for study opportunities in the U.S. Ms. Harris is a native Texan with a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies (1992) from St. Edward’s University, and a Master of Public Administration (2004) from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. She has 3/speaking and 3/reading levels in both Romanian and French and has studied Russian and Arabic.

  USAID Deputy Development Advisor to the U.S. Special Operations Command

• Eduardo Cue

  Eduardo Cue

  Moderator

  Eduardo Cue is an experienced communications expert, media coach and international journalist who has trained professionals at the highest levels, including Heads of State, Cabinet ministers, French and American Ambassadors, high-level European business executives, and leading journalists. He has extensive experience working in Africa, Europe, the United States and Latin America. Totally fluent in English, French and Spanish, Mr. Cue served as a public information officer and spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Africa, Latin America and New York as well as for the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris. He recently completed a long-range project to improve the external communications capabilities of the Nigerien military Eduardo is currently working as a European correspondent for the i24News network, for whom he covered the 2017 French presidential election and the secessionist movement in Catalonia in northeastern Spain. He brings to his training seminars experience as both a spokesperson and international journalist. His main topics include the art of the interview, how to get messages across to an audience, crisis communications, journalistic ethics, the relationship between the military and the media and the role of the media in a democracy. He has spoken before distinguished audiences including the AfriCorps summit that brings together African and US military leaders; the Senegalese Council of Ministers; and Parliamentary committees of the Moroccan Parliament. Eduardo carried out six missions as spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, serving in Geneva, New York, Chad, Colombia (where he was responsible for the public information operations of five countries), South Sudan and Mali. As an international journalist Eduardo has worked for the world’s leading media houses, including US News & World Report, United Press International, The Associated Press, The Washington Post, and The Times of London, where he served as Latin American correspondent. The mayor stories he covered include the Nicaraguan Civil War, human rights in Chile, military rebellions in Argentina, the Spanish ETA terrorist group, the creation of the Euro, the crises in Zimbabwe and Venezuela, and several French and US presidential elections as well as the US Congress and the White House. In the field of television Eduardo was a producer and correspondent for the Mexican television network Televisa in Paris and Washington as well as a correspondent for CNN in Spanish in Paris. More recently, Eduardo was an international affairs editor for the French 24 network, where he analyzed geopolitics for both the English and French networks. He appears frequently on numerous international radio and television channels to analyze events ranging from North Korea to the Middle East. Eduardo began his career in Spain covering the transition from the Franco dictatorship to democracy before joining the metropolitan staff of The Washington Post. He attended Georgetown University, where he received an AB Degree in political science and European history and received an MS in Journalism from Columbia University in New York.

  URL https://www.france24.com/en/eduardo-cue-1

  Moderator

• Kamissa Camara

  Kamissa Camara

  Professor of Practice in International Diplomacy at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan

  Ambassador Kamissa Camara serves as a Professor of Practice in International Diplomacy at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan. In her role, she brings real-world experience to the theoretical underpinnings of international diplomacy studies. Parallel to this, she contributes her expertise as a Senior Africa Advisor at the United States Institute of Peace and as a Non-Resident Scholar at the Middle East Institute. Ambassador Camara has held strategic roles within the Malian government. She notably served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, as well as Chief of Staff to the President of Mali. These high-profile positions cemented her status as a leading authority on African politics and international relations. Beyond academia and public service, Ambassador Camara is an influential voice in global media circles and contributes to CNN, Aljazeera and BBC, among others, on African and global politics. Ambassador Camara is finalizing her doctoral studies in political science at the University of Oxford, underscoring her commitment to blending academic rigor with practical diplomacy.

  Professor of Practice in International Diplomacy at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan