In this article, I draw on research carried out in Sweden, India, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, and the United States between 1995-2004 to focus on what Laurel Kendall describes as "the plasticity as well as the power of idiomatic kinship" in the context of transnational adoption. In both Europe and North America, transnational adoptions (which have tended to be cross-racial, in the sense that the majority of adopted children come from non-European regions of the globe) complicate the project of "imitating nature", since in many of these adoptions, the "difference" between adopted child and parent is obvious. The adoptee from Asia, Africa, or Latin America in an Euro-American home represents the ultimate paradox of belonging in a global context where transnationalism both affirms and breaches the borders of the nation-state.
Transnational Adoption; Idiomatic Kinship; Migration Ethnic Identity; National Belonging