Katrien De Graeve is a postdoctoral researcher of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), affiliated to the Department of Languages and Cultures of Ghent University, and member of the Centre for Research on Culture and Gender. In 2012, she completed her PhD at the Department of Comparative Sciences of Culture at Ghent University with a critical analysis of intensive parenting practices in Belgian-Ethiopian adoptive families. In 2013-2014, she was a visiting fellow of the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies (Finland), where she conducted a study on the relations of care in the context of transnational adoption and guardianship of unaccompanied minors. Her first postdoc research project explored the concept of care ethics through an empirical study of care relationships of unaccompanied minors in Belgium. In her current research project (2016-2019), she has shifted focus to the study of sexuality/romantic relationships and discourses of exclusivity and plurality in light of the normative two-parent nuclear family.

Katrien De Graeve is een postdoctoraal onderzoeker van het Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen, verbonden aan de Vakgroep Talen en Culturen van de Universiteit Gent en lid van het Onderzoekscentrum voor Cultuur en Gender. In 2012 behaalde ze een doctoraat in de Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschappen met een kritisch-antropologische studie van intensieve ouderschapspraktijken in Belgisch-Ethiopische adoptiefamilies. In 2013-2014 was ze fellow aan het Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies (Finland), waar ze werkte aan een vergelijkende studie van zorgrelaties in de context van transnationale adoptie en voogdijschappen van niet-begeleide minderjarigen. Haar eerste posdoc onderzoeksproject onderzocht het concept van zorgethiek via een studie van voogdijschappen van niet-begeleide minderjarigen in België. In haar huidig onderzoeksproject (2016-2019) verlegt ze haar focus naar de studie van seksueel/romantische relaties en vertogen van exclusiviteit en pluraliteit in het licht van het normatieve twee-ouder gezin.

Projects

Projects as supervisor

Global families, global inequalities. The politics of child relinquishment, search and reunion in transnational adoption (2017 - 2021)

Projects as postdoc

Projects as PhD researcher

Making families. Parenting and belonging in transnational adoption in Flanders (2008 - 2012)

Publications

Key publications

Festive gatherings and culture work in Flemish-Ethiopian adoptive families(2013)
- Katrien De Graeve
Mothering as a citizenship practice: an intersectional analysis of 'carework' and 'culturework' in non-normative mother–child identities(2013)
- Chia Longman
- Katrien De Graeve
- Tine Brouckaert
The limits of intimate citizenship: reproduction of difference in Flemish-Ethiopian 'adoption cultures'(2010)
- Katrien De Graeve
Queering the family? A multi-layered analysis of relations of inequality in transnational adoption(2014)
- Katrien De Graeve
From happy to critical diversity: intersectionality as a paradigm for gender and diversity research(2014)
- Chia Longman
- Katrien De Graeve
Geographies of migration and relatedness: transmigrancy in open transnational adoptive parenting(2015)
- Katrien De Graeve
'They have our culture': negotiating migration in Belgian–Ethiopian transnational adoption(2015)
- Katrien De Graeve
Classed landscapes of care and belonging: guardianships of unaccompanied minors(2014)
- Katrien De Graeve

Most recent publications

Full bibliography

Teaching

2014-2019: Lecturer of the course 'Gender en Diversiteit' for BA and MA students (A003030/K001037) (in Dutch)

2017-2018: Lecturer of the course 'Seksualiteit en Globalisering' for BA and MA students (A002320) (in Dutch)

Student supervision: I am happy to supervise MA dissertations on topics related to my areas of interest (critical adoption studies, anthropology of kinship, relationships and families, ethics of care, anthropology of gender and diversity, postcolonial and feminist studies).

PhD Supervision

- Bex, Christof - Global families, global inequalities: The politics of relinquishment and reunion in transnational adoption. Perspectives of first families, adoption intermediaries and anti-adoption activists in Andean Bolivia (FWO fellowship 2017-2021; co-supervisor)

Supervision Master Theses; completed theses (in alphabetical order):

- Bex, Christof (MA in Gender en Diversiteit 2015-2016) – ‘Een reis naar het verleden: "Roots", Terugreizen, Zoektochten en Herenigingen met Geboortefamilies bij Vlaams-Bolviaans geadopteerden’

- Daveloose, Jana (MA in Gender en Diversiteit 2015-2016) – ‘Familievorming via IVF: Ervaringen van Lesbische Koppels bij Moederschap via IVF’

- Defruyt, Griet (MA in Gender en Diversiteit 2017-2018) – ‘Zie ik mijn ouders ooit terug? Een kwalitatief onderzoek naar de ervaringen met gezinshereniging van niet-begeleide minderjarigen en voogden’

- Dekoninck, Jolien (MA in Gender en Diversiteit 2015-2017) – ‘De Representatie van Witte Vrouwen in Vlaamse Kinder -en Jeugdliteratuur over Congo'

- Dubois, Didier (MA in Gender en Diversiteit 2016-2018) – ‘Discoursanalyse van relatiebeleving bij consensueel non-monogame koppels’

- Kasbergen, Emma-Lee (MA in Gender en Diversiteit 2015-2016) – ‘Mixed couples, mixed feelings’. An Analysis of Different Meanings of Whiteness amongst 'Interracial' Couples in Belgium and The Netherlands'

- Van Damme, Ella Maria (MA in de Pedagogische Wetenschappen 2015-2017 – ‘een kwalitatief onderzoek naar de beleving en betrokkenheid van reeds aanwezige kinderen in een gezin dat een pleeggezin wordt’

- Van Regenmortel, Debby (MA in de Pedagogische Wetenschappen 2013-2015) – ‘Een kwalitatiefonderzoek naar de beleving van een pleegzorgsituatie vanuit het perspectief van pleegjongeren’

- Vercruysse, Lily (MA in Gender en Diversiteit 2016-2018) – ‘Revolutionair of normatief? Een discoursanalyse van Nederlandstalige zelfhulpliteratuur over polyamorie’

- Vermeirsch, Arwen (MA in Gender en Diversiteit 2016-2018) – ‘Genderbewust opvoeden. Een kwalitatief onderzoek naar de visies, beweegredenen en ervaringen van ouders’

Services

Peer Review and Editorial Work

Referee for:

- Adoption & Culture: Journal of the Alliance for the Study of Adoption and Culture.

- Annals of Medical and Health Sciences Research

- Anthropology and Medicine (IF 0.592)

- Anthropology Matters

- Area (IF 1.755)

- Childhood: A Global Journal of Child Research (IF 0.985)

- DiGeSt: Journal of Diversity & Gender Studies

- Journal of Consumer Culture (IF 3.579)

- Journal of Family Issues (IF:1.696)

- Journal of GLBT Family Studies

- Medical Anthropology (IF: 1.348)

- PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review (IF 0.605)

- Social and Cultural Geography (1.539)

- Sociological Quarterly (IF:1.237)

- Sociological Research Online (IF 0.519)

- The Journal of the Royal Anthropology Institute (IF: 1.619)

- Women’s Studies International Forum (IF.0.686)

Member Editorial Team DiGeSt: Journal of Diversity and Gender Studies (2014-…)

Editorial Assistant DiGeSt: Journal of Diversity and Gender Studies (2015-…)

Member of the Editorial Committee of Leuven University Press (2018-...)

Membership in Committees

Referee for grant applications ZonMw, the Netherlands (2018).

Member Selection Committee for the post of Assistant in Department Languages and Cultures, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Ghent University, March/April 2017

Member Examination Committee PhD Lydia Namatende (rapporteur), ‘Agency with Interstices of Subordination: Female Teacher Educators’ Gendered Lived Experiences in Uganda’, November 2016.

Member Board of Examiners PhD Hasan Isikli, ‘Memory and Awareness of Place. An Anthropological research into memory and identity-processes in Izmir city and the International Izmir Festival’, November 2015.

Member Examination Committee PhD Hendrika van den Brandt, ‘Religion, Secularity and Feminism in a West-European Context. A Qualitative Study of Organisations and Activism in Flanders’, December 2014.

Member Examination Committee PhD Marc Vermeersch, ‘Om zich te reproduceren moet de mens zich ook ideologisch reproduceren’, July 2012.

Member of the Doctoral Advisory Committee PhD Maria Judite Mario Chipenembe Ngale – ‘Sexual and reproductive rights of lesbian and albino women. A qualitative analysis of organisations and individual life experiences in the cities of Maputu and Nampula, Mozambique’.

Member of the Doctoral Advisory Committee PhD Fiorella Bucci – ‘The symbolic polysemy of language. Psychosocial research and intervention through Emotional Textual Analysis (ETA)’.

Member of the Doctoral Advisory Committee PhD Amal Miri – ‘Marriage Migration: Integration, Identity and Empowerment among Muslim Women in Belgian Society’.

Member Examination Committee for Research Seminar Master for Cultures & Development Studies (CADES), KUL, March 2013.

Active Membership in Research Groups and Expertise Centres

since 2017: ECSO (Ethics, Culture and Society) – Executive Member

since 2015: Sophia Belgian Network for Gender Studies – General Assembly Member

2015-2017: Sophia Belgian Network for Gender Studies – Board Member

since 2015: Centre for Parenting Culture Studies, University of Kent (UK) - Associate

since 2014: U4 Network Gender Studies – Organizing Committee

since 2014: Diversity Team Faculty of Arts and Humanities, UGent – Member Core Team & Contact Person

since 2014: Centre for Research on Culture and Gender, UGent – Executive Member

Sept 2014-Feb 2015: CiCi/Centre for Research on Culture and Gender – Director Ad Interim

2013-2017: Steunpunt Adoptie - Board Member

2011-2015: Centre for Studies in African Humanities (CESAH), UGent - Member

2010-2015: Ghent Africa Platform (GAP), UGent – Member Executive Committee

2008-2014: Centre for Intercultural Communication and Interaction (CiCi), UGent – Executive Member

Activities

Participation in Conferences & Invited Lectures

October 2018: l’Atelier Genre(s) et Sexualité(s), Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium). Invited lecture : How queer is polyamory ?
October 2018: A.PASS meets SOL/School of Love Symposium, Advanced Performance and Scenography Studies, Brussels (Belgium). Invited lecture and workshop on polyamory and love.
June 2018: LGBT-Forum, Ghent (Belgium). Invited lecture: Is polyamorie queer?
May 2018: Kraks@DeKrook – Dating in Tijden van Tinder, Ghent (Belgium). Invited lecture: Non-monogamie en Sociale Media.
October 2017: Polyamory Belgium – National Poly Meet, Ghent (Belgium). Workshop: What about equality in polyamory?
September 2017: IV European Geographies of Sexualities Conference, Barcelona (Spain). Panel convenor (with Valerie De Craene): The researcher’s erotic subjectivities: methodological and ethical challenges. Paper: How far (openness about) participation can go? Morality and subjectivity in intimate research settings.
September 2017: 2nd Non-Monogamies and Contemporary Intimacies Conference, Vienna (Austria). Paper: Being a good man. Masculinities and morality in the context of non-monogamous internet-mediated dating
August-Sept 2017: 13th Conference of the European Sociological Association, Athens (Greece). Paper: The making of masculinities, normativity and morality in non-monogamous internet-mediated dating
April 2017: AtGender Spring Conference, Vilnius (Lithuania)Paper: (Re)production of masculine sexualities in the context of non-monogamous internet mediated dating
February 2017: Symposium: To Publish in Gender and Sexuality Studies, a Professional Challenge, ULB Brussels (Belgium) Invited expert: Session II: To Publish in English
October 2016: Development Debate 11.11.11, BTC, DiV, VLIR-UOS, VVN en VVOB: ‘Zijn we met te veel?’, Brussels. Panel discussants

June 2016: Centre for Research on Families and Relationships (CRFR) International Conference, University of Edinburgh (UK) Paper: ‘I don’t want to ruin my family’. Parents and internet dating: Negotiating the monogamy-nuclear family nexus

June 2016: Centre for Parenting Studies Conference: Parenting and Personhood: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Family-Life, Expertise, and Risk Management, University of Kent (UK) Paper: ‘I don’t want to ruin my family’. Parents and internet dating: Negotiating the monogamy-nuclear family nexus

April 2016:Migration Working Group Seminars, Ghent (Belgium) Presentation: Caringscapes and Belonging: An Intersectional Analysis of Care Relationships of Unaccompanied Minors in Belgium; with discussant Ilse Derluyn.

August 2015: U4 Conference on Ethics of Families : Moral relevance of family relations in reproductive medicine, Ghent (Belgium) Invited lecture: The construction of the social world and the family's striving for recognition in the context of adoption

June 2015: Société Internationale d’Ethnologie et de Folklore (SIEF) – 12th International Congress: Utopias, Realities, Heritages. Ethnographies for the 21th century, Zagreb (Croatia)Panel convenor (with Beatriz San Román): Non-normative Relationships and (co)habitation: utopian visions, everyday practices and imageries of origin and belonging& paper presentation: Care as Social Capital: Foster Families for Unaccompanied Minor

June 2015: The 9th European Feminist Research Conference: Sex and Capital, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi (Finland)Paper: The Care for Unaccompanied Minors

August 2014: International Forum on Intercountry Adoption and Surrogacy, International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague (the Netherlands)Invited participant

May 2014:The Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology (JASCA) 50th Anniversary & The International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) – Inter-Congress 2014, Tokyo (Japan) Panel Convenor (with Hadas Weiss and Katariina Mäkinen): The Future of Class & Paper: Classed Landscapes of Care and Belonging: Guardianships of Unaccompanied Minors

March 2014: The Annual Sociological Conference at Rovaniemi (Finland) Paper: Figurations of Care: Transnational Adoption and Guardianships of Unaccompanied Minors

February 2014: Seminar Series: Transnational Muslim Marriages in Finland; Academy of Finland Research Project ‘Transnational Muslim Marriages: Wellbeing, Law, and Gender’, Department of Social Research, University of Helsinki (Finland) Invited lecture: Negotiating Migration in Belgian-Ethiopian Transnational Adoptive Families

November 2013: American Anthropological Association (AAA) Annual Meeting – Theme: Future Publics, Current Engagements, Chicago (US)Paper: Imaginations of relatedness, family and nation: a comparative analysis of transnational adoption, domestic foster care and guardianship of unaccompanied refugee minors in Belgium

May 2013: Politicologenetmaal, Ghent University (Belgium) Discussant Session: Politics at the intersection. Bridging Gender and Ethnicity

November 2012: Adoptions, Families and Childhoods (AFIN) 6th International Congress,Valladolid (Spain) Invited lecture

April 2012: Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Workshop: ‘What's New About 'Parenting'? Comparative Studies In Kinship, Self And Politics’, University of Kent, Canterbury (UK) Paper: Intensive Mothering and Transnational Adoption – (with Chia Longman)

April 2011: Société Internationale d’Ethnologie et de Folklore (SIEF) – 10th International Congress : People make places. Ways of feeling in the world, Lisbon (Portugal)Paper: ‘Negotiating migration as parenting work in Flemish-Ethiopian transnational adoption’

November 2010: American Anthropological Association (AAA) Annual Meeting – Theme: Circulation, New Orleans (US) Paper: ‘Intensive mothering and transnational adoption – a feminist anthropological appraisal’ (with Chia Longman)

June/July 2010: Beyond Citizenship: feminism and the transformation of belonging, Birkbeck, University of London (UK)Paper: ‘Forever half Ethiopian’: self-conscious citizenship in Flemish-Ethiopian ‘adoption cultures’

June 2010: Centre for Research on Families and Relationships (CRFR) International Conference, University of Edinburgh (UK) Paper: Culture keeping as self-conscious citizenship in Flemish-Ethiopian adoptive families

April/May 2010: Alliance for the Study of Adoption and Culture – 3rd International Conference: Adoption: Secret Histories, Public Policies. MIT, Cambridge (US)Paper: Forever half Ethiopian: Challenging Cultural and Biological Differences in the Heart of the Family

February 2010: Conference on Mothering and Migration: (Trans)nationalisms, Globalization and Displacement, University of Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico)Paper: Rivisiting Maternalism: Parenting as a Citizenship Practice among Undocumented Migrant Mothers and Adoptive Parents (with Chia Longman, & Tine Brouckaert)

December 2009: Third Symposium Ghent Africa Platform (GAPSYM3): Gendering Research in/on Africa, Ghent University (Belgium) Workshop: Mothering and Agency in Transnational Contexts (with Tine Brouckaert &Marianne Vervliet)

October 2009: Adoptie Studiedag: Adoptie maakt het verschil. Het surplus van adoptie in de hulpverlening. Steunpunt Nazorg Adoptie, Halle (Belgium) Invited lecture: Omgaan met verschillen in adoptieculturen: een antropologische kijk op transnationale adoptie

July 2009: Second International Conference on Geographies of Children, Youth andFamilies: ‘Diverse Childhoods in International Contexts - Gender and Other Social and Cultural Differences’, Univeritat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain Paper: Discourses of ‘Difference’ in ‘Adoption Cultures’: A Case Study of Flemish Adoptive Parents of Children from Ethiopia

December 2008: Second Symposium Ghent Africa Platform (GAPSYM2): Mobilities in Africa – Africa in Mobility, Ghent University (Belgium). Poster: Discourses of ‘Difference’ in ‘Adoption Cultures’: A Case Study of Flemish Adoptive Parents of Children from Ethiopia

Organization Events

2021: 8th Afroeuropeans Network Conference, Brussels (Belgium) (Co-organizer)
April 2019: 2-Day Colloquium Transnational Adoption, Brussels (Belgium) (Organizer). With lectures by Riitta Högbacka and Tobias Hübinette
April 2019: U4 Workshop Gender Studies Network in Gent
November 2018: The ECSO-IARG conference on Sexual and Gendered Moralities, UGent (26-27 November 2018) (Panel coordinator)
September 2018: Interuniversity 3-days training programme: Critical Ethnographic Research Seminar: Critical Ethnography and Feminist Epistemology, @ Ghent University (Belgium).(Coordinator & member organizing & scientific committee). With lectures and master classes by Maria do Mar Pereira, Elizabeth Ettorre and Don Kulick
July-August 2018: U4 Interdisciplinary Summer School in Gender Studies, University of Uppsala (Swede). (member organizing committee). Organized by U4 University Netwerk Gent, Uppsala, Groningen & Göttingen
May 2018: Interuniversity Gender Research Seminar: How to Study the Complexity of Femininities, Masculinities and Gender Fluidity?, University of Antwerp (Belgium) (member organizing committee)
April 2018. The Journal of Diversity and Gender Studies fifth anniversary event, Ghent University (Belgium)(organizer) With lectures by David Paternotte and Sarah Bracke
April 2018. Specialist Course: New Materialism and Difference, Ghent University (Belgium)(member organizing committee)
June 2017: Women and Migration, Ghent University (Belgium) (organizer and coordinator) Organized by Centre for Research on Culture and Gender in cooperation with the Lithuanian Culture Centre in Belgium (Ghent University), the Migration Working Group (Ghent University) and the Centre for the Social Study of Migration and Refugees (Ghent University); With seminar by Ladan Rahbari and public lecture by Eglė Kačkutė
May 2017: Interuniversity Gender Research Seminar: Intersectionality: Theory, Concepts and Methods. VUB, Brussels (Belgium) (member organizing committee & panel chair)
April-Sept 2017: Specialist Course: How to Make Sense of Subjectivity in Research? Ghent University (Belgium) (member organizing committee, coordinator of the instruction day on ‘Subjectivity and the Politics of Science’); Organized by staff of Centre for Research on Culture and Gender (Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Ghent University), Department of Psychoanalysis and Clinical Consulting, Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy and Department of Educational Sciences (Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ghent University) and Bioethics Institute (Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Ghent University); With lectures & PhD master classes by Dan Zahavi, Frederik Svenaeus, Angela Willey and Leora Farber
November 2017: Internationalization @ Home Event Dept. Languages and Cultures Ghent University: International Perspectives on Gender and Sexuality, Ghent (seminar coordinator)

August 2016: U4 Interdisciplinary Summer School in Gender Studies (member organizing committee) Organized by U4 University Netwerk Gent, Uppsala, Groningen & Göttingen. In Göttingen, Germany

May 2016: Interuniversity Gender Research Seminar: Moralities and the Intimate Life (Coordinator & member organising & scientific committee)With lectures and master classes by David Eng, Jennie Bristow, Matt Cook, Dilek Cindoğlu and Ilke Turkmendag

November 2015: Interdisciplinary Collaborative Initiative on the Research of Families, Relationships, Parenting and Reproduction Staff exchange meeting Centre for Research on Culture and Gender (Ghent University), Bioethics Institute Ghent (Ghent University), Centre for Parenting Culture Studies (University of Kent) & Kent Law School (University of Kent) (Coordinator) With keynote lecture by Srećko Horvat and response by Frank Furedi

September 2015: Interuniversity Two Days Training Programme: Critical Ethnographic Research at Ghent University (Belgium) (Coordinator & member organising & scientific committee) With lectures and master classes by Rozita Dimova, Kirsten Hastrup, Ruth Behar, Katariina Mäkinen, Lisa Dikomitis and An van. Dienderen

October 2014: HCAS Symposium: Citizenship and Migration, Helsinki (Finland) (Co-organiser together with Katariina Mäkinen and Riikka Rossi; opening speech; panel discussant & conclusions) With lectures by Jasbir Puar, Rinaldo Walcott, Karel Arnaut, Peter Geschiere, Diana Mulinari, Anne-Marie Fortier, Bridget Byrne, Meyda Yeğenoğlu, Olli Löytty, Anu Koivunen, Maijastina Kahlos and Sarah Bracke

December 2011: 5th symposium of the Ghent Africa Platform (GAPSYM5): (r)Urban Africa: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the African City, Ghent (Member scientific committee & organising team)

November 2010: Symposium [Un]disciplined encounters. Science as a terrain of postcolonial interaction between Africa and Europe, University Foundation, Brussels (Belgium) (Member organising team)