‘They Have Our Culture’: Negotiating Migration in Belgian–Ethiopian Transnational Adoption

Migration studies have so far largely failed to include transnational adoption and left the study of this phenomenon to other disciplines, such as kinship and family studies. This article aims at bridging this disciplinary divide. By looking through the lens of transnational adoption, it explores the ideological values that bolster the discourse on immigrants. Furthermore, it investigates how the migratory movement of adoptees is being negotiated in the intimate realm of the family and how the conceptualization of adoptees as immigrants/non-immigrants can be empowering or rather constraining. By doing so, the article aims both to further our understanding and theorization of the experiences and dynamics of transnational adoption and advance our insight in questions of migration and belonging in society more generally.