Outsiders within: examining Ethiopian adoptee experiences through a diasporic lens

ABSTRACTThe term ‘diaspora’ continues to have purchase, as public and scholarly communities grapple with a world increasingly characterized by transnational flows of people, ideas, and capital. The concept has played a critical role in making these messy constellations of social, political, and economic ties both visible and legible. However, transnational adoptees are often positioned just outside this analytical purview, and their migrations, identity processes, and political projects are rarely examined through a ‘diasporic’ conceptual lens. Based on 20 in-depth interviews with adult Ethiopian adoptees residing in the US, this paper discusses the points of dis/connection between Ethiopian adoptees and the larger Ethiopian diaspora. We focus on how Ethiopian adoptees navigate their inclusion/exclusion as peripheral actors across social groups, as well as the active work they engage in to negotiate their diasporic identities, belongings and personal politic. This analysis draws our attention to new actors at the edges of diasporic communities, which complicates and enriches mainstream conceptions of diaspora.KEYWORDS: BelongingdiasporaEthiopiaidentitytransnational adoption Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 It is not uncommon that transnational adoptees have at least one living birth parent. UNICEF (Citation2014) defines an orphan as a child with one deceased parent, distinguishing between maternal, paternal, and double orphans. Moreover, children can be erroneously categorized as orphans to fraudulently create a constant supply of ‘adoptable’ children to prospective adoptive parents (Hailu Citation2017; Steenrod Citation2022). To illustrate, Hannah Pool (Citation2009), an Ethiopian/Eritrean adoptee, writes about how she discovered that her father is well and alive in her thirties. Similarly, in our sample alone, 14 out of the 20 adoptees have at least one living birth parent and have maintained or re-established contact with their families in Ethiopia.2 Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt (b. 2005) is the adopted daughter of the celebrity couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Zahara was born in Hawassa, Ethiopia and known as Yemeserach before being adopted at six month old.3 Tsehay Hawkins (b. 2005), was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and adopted by a white Australia couple at five months old. She is an actor, dancer and singer, best known as a member of the Australia children's music group The Wiggles.4 See https://www.uscis.gov/adoption/country-information/adoption-information-ethiopia (last accessed 9/23/2023).5 According to Peter Selman (Citation2022) between 2003 and 2016, 32,000 Ethiopian children were adopted to eight Global North countries, namely the U.S. Canada, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Switzerland, and Belgium. This does not include adoptions that took place prior to 2003 and between 2016 and 2018, when the practice was banned by the Ethiopian government. Moreover, other significant destinations such as Sweden where the first wave of adoption from Ethiopia (1960s–1970s) took place, are not included in this number. If we expand the time period and geographic restriction, the overall number is likely to be over 50,000 since the practice of transnational adoption began in Ethiopia.6 The study has received ethical clearance from [Name of institution and IRB # redacted for review].7 An adoption triad is composed of adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents.8 All the names of the respondents have been changed to pseudonyms to protect their identities. In addition to their pseudonyms, in parenthesis, we provide the gender and age of respondents at the time of the interview.9 Kassaye Berhanu-Mac Donald publishes her own personal website that chronicles her advocacy, writing and reflections related to her journey as an adoptee, including herness’ and Ethiopian communities over the years. Read more here: https://www.kassayeberhanu.com/.10 The name of this city was redacted to remove any potential information that could identify this respondent.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by UNC Greensboro.