About

Abdoulaye Kane is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Center for African Studies at the University of Florida, a position he has held since August 2011. His academic background includes a PhD in Sociology from the University of Amsterdam, a DEA Certificate in Diplomacy and International Relations from IDERIC, and multiple degrees in Sociology and Political Science from Université Gaston Berger in Senegal. His expertise encompasses anthropological theory, transnational migration, migrants’ social and religious networks, migration and development cooperation, informal finance, diaspora studies, gender and migration, with regional focus on Africa, Europe, and the United States. Kane's research explores the social, religious, and economic dimensions of African migration, including transnational religious circuits, informal financial practices, and the social networks of migrants. He has authored and edited numerous books and articles on these topics, such as 'African Migrations: Patterns and Perspectives' and 'Medicine, Mobility, and Power in Global Africa.' His work also examines the role of Sufi orders, particularly the Tijaniyya, in transnational religious circuits, and the social and cultural processes of Senegalese migrants in Europe and the United States. Kane has been active in presenting his research at international and national conferences, contributing to the understanding of African diaspora dynamics, religious practices, and migration-related social change.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Computer Science
• Cognitive science
• Geography
• Epistemology
• History
• Psychology
• Finance
• Cognitive psychology
• Business
• Philosophy
• Gender studies

Selected publications

• Circuits and movement in religious transnationalism: a Tijani community between Mbour (Senegal), Fez (Morocco) and Mantes-la-Jolie (France)

  Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines · 2026-01-02

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• P-184 Prise en charge transfusionnelle du blessé de guerre au Mali : Etat des lieux et perspectives

  Transfusion Clinique et Biologique · 2023-11-01

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• Sahelian Transnational Networks and Diasporas

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2021-12-08

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  Abstract This chapter examines the establishment of Sahelian diasporas in Europe and the United States, their remittances, and the return patterns that have become so important for sending households and communities. Large sums of money are sent by Sahelian migrants to support household budgets that have often come to depend on these remittances. The chapter also addresses the development interventions of hometown associations and other migrant networks that fund community projects and provide social services to their sending communities, and the importance of return migration and its effects on local economies. It examines the sustainability of these vital connections between Sahelian diasporas and their home communities in a context where migration out of the Sahel is increasingly restricted. It concludes with questions about the sustainability of these patterns, given the declining commitment and attachment to place of second- and third-generation migrants.

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• Beyond the invisible Muslims label

  Routledge eBooks · 2021

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Psychology
  • Cognitive science

  This chapter will survey the few studies dedicated to the small but rapidly growing West African Muslim minorities in Europe and America. Contrary to the common theme of visible and invisible Muslims or integration versus home commitment dualisms, this chapter explores from an anthropological perspective the lived experiences of African Muslims in their daily attempts to express their religious identities in the public domain in Western contexts. The objective of the chapter is to analyze the building of African Muslim communities around places of worship and major annual religious events in which particular senses of being Muslims in diasporic contexts and conditions are being defined. The chapter will look at the dominant actors in this process of African Muslim diasporic formations and their engagement with political authorities at local levels as well as their ideological and political positioning in the prevalent anti-Muslim political discourse in the West. It will examine comparatively to other Muslim minorities how African Muslim communities navigate the European attempts to limit and even eliminate the outside control of Muslim minorities in their territory by both sending states and/or foreign organized Muslim movements.

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• Financial Arrangements Across Borders: Women's Predominant Participation in Popular Finance, from Thilogne and Dakar to Paris. A Senegalese Case Study 1

  Routledge eBooks · 2020

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Finance
  • Business

  This chapter focuses on women's prominent role in the savings and credit practices common to most Senegalese households in recent times. The present chapter will examine popular socio-financial arrangements of the contractual and monetary type - the Rotating Savings and Credit Associations and the Accumulating Savings and Credit Associations. Tontines date back to pre-colonial times, but they did not attract significant attention from researchers until the early 1960s. To understand the dynamism that characterizes tontines in contemporary African communities, one must explore their roots in reciprocity and sociability practices built on familial and neighbourhood ties. The wide diversity of tontines makes any attempt at classification hazardous. Women are prominent in mutual and commercial tontines in Thilogne (a rural area in the north of Senegal), in Dakar and among Senegalese immigrants in France. Senegalese tontines offer their members a compulsory savings scheme, access to interest-free credit and an extensive social network they can turn to in times of need.

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• Senegal's Village Diaspora and the People Left Ahead

  Routledge eBooks · 2020 · 23 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Geography
  • History

  This chapter focuses on the organization of Senegalese village-based migrant communities in France. The transnational character of these migrant social networks is paradoxical because they arise in the context of globalization but are fundamentally rooted in highly localised West African village associational ties. The migration pattern has unfolded in response to the pulsation of local and international push and pull factors. Immigration policies in foreign countries, notably France, allowed legal migrants to proceed to family regrouping, bringing about the integration and settlement of whole families. The different organizational sections of TAD all display the common objective of contributing to community projects that enhance the social welfare of the local village population, specifically in the fields of education, health and water supplies.

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• Stuck in Transit: Narrative of Young Senegalese Emigrants En Route to Europe

  2013-04-14

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  The rush to Spain by young Africans using traditional boats has attracted a lot of media attention because of their often tragic outcomes with images of dead bodies and frail survivors. Similar attention is given to the experience of risky border crossings from North Africa to Italy. Less discussed is the experience of thousands of young Africans in countries of transit and their hope and fear of crossing borders, their countless stories of harsh conditions of travel and of life in transit countries such as Morocco, Turkey and Greece. This paper will focus on young Senegalese emigrants’ narrative of travel and failed or successful border crossings, and the prospect of staying, continuing, and returning. The primary focus is on the extended life experience of the young Senegalese in places where they planned to stay only temporarily, but found themselves caught up by political and economic circumstances. The paper relates these experiences back to the progressive formation of a culture of migration in the Senegal River Valley where the migration of the youth is expected and socially highly valorized.

• Medicine, mobility, and power in global Africa : transnational health and healing

  2012-01-01 · 94 citations

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  Hansjorg Dilger, Abdoulaye Kane, and Stacey A. Langwick Introduction Part 1. Scale as an Effect of Power 1. The Choreography of Global Subjection: The Traditional Birth Attendant in Contemporary Configurations of World Health Stacey A. Langwick 2. Targeting the Empowered Individual: Transnational Policy-Making, the Global Economy of Aid and the Limitations of 'Biopower' in Tanzania Hansjorg Dilger 3. Health Security on the Move. Biobureaucracy, Solidarity and the Transfer of Health Insurance to Senegal Angelika Wolf 4. Afri-global Medicine: New Perspectives on Epidemics, Drugs, Wars, Migrations, and Healing-rituals John Janzen 5. AIDS Policies for Markets and Warriors: Dispossession, Capital, and Pharmaceuticals in Nigeria Kristin Peterson Part 2. Alternative Forms of Globality 6. Assisted Reproductive Technologies in Mali and Togo: Circulating Knowledge, Mobile Technology, Transnational Efforts Viola Horbst 7. Flows of Medicine, Healers, Health Professionals, and Patients between Home and Host Countries Abdoulaye Kane 8. Public Health or Public Threat? Polio Eradication Campaigns, Islamic Revival, and the Materialization of State Power in Niger Adeline Masquelier 9. School of Deliverance: Healing, Exorcism and Male Spirit Possession in the Ghanaian Presbyterian Diaspora Adam Mohr Part 3. Moving through the Gaps 10. It's Just Like the Internet: Transnational Healing Practices between Somaliland and the Somali Diaspora Marja Tiilikainen 11. Mobility and Connectedness: Chinese Medical Doctors in Kenya Elisabeth Hsu 12. Guinean Migrant Traditional Healers in the Global Market Clara Carvalho Contributors Index

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• Charity and self‐help: Migrants' social networks and health care in the homeland (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

  Anthropology Today · 2010-08-01 · 6 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This article examines the delivery of healthcare by Haalpulaar immigrants' village association in France to their rural villages in Senegal. In the context of the neo‐liberal reforms in Senegal, the Haalpulaar immigrants have been very active in funding community project in the health sector for their communities of origin left to fend for themselves by the State. Haalpulaar migrants associations like TAD (Thilogne Association Developpement) and Fuuta Santé are improving access to healthcare in the Senegal River valley through the remittances of biomedicine, medical equipment as well as the organization of annual health caravans with the participation of French health professionals and local partners.

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• Les diasporas africaines et la mondialisation

  Horizons Maghrébins - Le droit à la mémoire · 2005-01-01 · 1 citations

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  Le but de cette contribution est, d'une part, de voir dans quelle mesure la notion de diaspora est applicable aux nouvelles vagues de migrants africains récemment installés en Europe et en Amérique du Nord et, d'autre part, de rendre compte du rôle de plus en plus indispensable de ces nouvelles diasporas africaines dans la résolution des problèmes cruciaux de développement auxquels le continent est confronté. La globalisation de l'économie et plus particulièrement du marché du travail relativise les formes de dispersion volontaire ou forcée jusque-là utilisées comme des catégories pertinentes pour définir ce qu'est une diaspora. Pour saisir des opportunités telles que des parts de marché, des systèmes fiscaux avantageux, une main- d'œuvre bon marché, les multinationales du Nord viennent s'installer dans les pays du Sud. Selon cette même logique de la recherche d'opportunités économiques, les individus des pays du Sud viennent chercher dans les pays riches du travail, des salaires élevés et un niveau de vie confortable.

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Frequent coauthors

• Stacey Langwick

  2 shared

• Todd H. Leedy

  1 shared

• Baba Fané

  1 shared

• Madani Ouologuem

  1 shared

• Hansjörg Dilger

  1 shared

• Seydou Simbo Diakite

  1 shared

• Thièrno Madane Diop

  University of Bamako

  1 shared

• Alhassane Ba

  Centre Pour le Développement des Vaccins-Mali

  1 shared