Description du sujet de thèse

"The return of French adults adopted in Ethiopia." An overlooked territory, can it still belong to those who once inhabited it? This thesis project proposes to analyze, through a dual geographical and emotional lens, the mobilities and return modalities of French adults adopted in Ethiopia. Indeed, in a dual context of declining international adoptions worldwide and the rise of a sense of belonging to a specific social group claiming plural identities, some adopted adults wish to return to Ethiopia. This desire, sometimes socially constructed by pressures from non-adopted individuals to reconnect with one's birth country, manifests itself through the undertaking of visits, often in conjunction with legal efforts to access adoption files. However, far from being simple reunions with a homeland, these movements are spatial and emotional experiences. , fully affective and political, marked by tensions between anchoring and strangeness, belonging and otherness. This project aims to investigate these mobilities through three axes. The first focuses on return practices from the perspective of tourism and migration, studying the circuits, actors, and mediations that structure these movements. It will involve questioning the representations and spatial logics that frame these mobilities as well as the ways of staging origin and examining how these journeys are impacted by ongoing conflicts in Ethiopia.The second axis explores the emotional and memorial dimension of return, questioning how adoptees (re)invest a territory they have not known or do not remember, and (re)compose their attachments to places. Finally, the third axis will adopt a situated epistemological and methodological perspective, anchoring the research in an ethnographic approach built with and from the interviewees. This stance aims to produce critical knowledge that values the voices and experiences of the people involved, relying on sensitive investigative tools (sound, narrative, mapping) and a keen attention to interactions in the research situation. In doing so, this project thus aims to contribute to the critical study of international adoptions and return mobilities as constitutive aspects of the geographies of migration and international mobilities.

Contexte de travail

This project falls within the framework of "Mobility and migration in/from the Horn of Africa" of the French Center for Ethiopian Studies (CFEE, UAR3137, https://www.cfee.cnrs.fr/), located in Addis Ababa, where the field survey would take place. It also aligns with the themes of "Inequalities, (in)justices and resistances" and "Shared knowledge and comparative methods" of the UMR7218 LAVUE-Mosaïques based at Paris Nanterre University (https://www.lavue.cnrs.fr/). The doctoral candidate will be enrolled in the ED395 School of Doctoral Studies on Spaces, Times, and Cultures (https://ed-etc.parisnanterre.fr/). He/she will be an employee of the CNRS, through a 36-month doctoral contract. This contract implies a long-term mobility within the CFEE, the duration and schedule of which will be defined in dialogue with the candidate. The doctoral research will be co-supervised by Pauline GUINARD (MCF-HDR in geography, ENS, LAVUE-Mosaïques) and Marie Bridonneau (MCF in geography, CNRS, CFEE).

Contraintes et risques

Methodology: The methodological approach will combine biographical interviews, analysis of digital corpuses (such as Facebook posts), participant observation, and sound recording. The podcast format, envisaged as a research and restitution tool, will allow for reporting on the emotions of return through voices, silences, and soundscapes. Field: The fieldwork will primarily focus on the city of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. This city is indeed a strategic site to observe social interactions and territorial logics of return. However, it will also be possible to follow adoptees as part of a longer journey to other regions of the country, if the political context allows. An exploratory mission would be envisaged in the first year, followed by a longer stay in the second year. Learning Amharic is recommended, with occasional use of an interpreter if necessary.