Toward an Expanded We: Ethiopian Migration to Israel, Generational Belonging, and Everyday Negotiations of Difference

Abstract (English)

Based on two decades of ethnographic research on Ethiopian migration to Israel — including seven years of fieldwork in Ethiopian villages, transit camps, and neighborhoods in Israel — this paper explores the evolving, heterogeneous, and ongoing experiences of a community whose migration spans over forty years. Migration here is not a singular event but a continuous, generational, and situated process shaped by shifting social positions. First migrants, 1.5-generation members, and second-generation Ethiopian Israelis negotiate belonging in diverse ways, shaped by life course and societal dynamics.
At the same time, ties to Ethiopia remain active. Transnational relations, memories, and obligations weave into daily life, resisting binaries of origin and destination or push and pull explanations. Rather than fitting neatly into such categories, these layered realities give rise to what I propose as an Expanded We: a dynamic and situated sense of belonging shaped by connection and distinction. This Expanded We emerges in community collaborations, intergenerational exchanges, and shared social spaces, yet remains shaped by structural constraints and limited hybridity.
Belonging is further negotiated amid tensions between self-definition, societal perceptions, and the impact of policies and institutional frameworks. While Israeli society has been shaped by diverse migration histories, distinctions related to skin color and associations with Ethiopia continue to mark Ethiopian Israelis as different. Yet this Expanded We is shaped by tensions and is never fully complete or universally embraced. It emerges unevenly across generations and social spaces, often alongside experiences of exclusion. Belonging, then, remains fragile and negotiated — raising questions about the role of anthropology in tracing both divisions and possibilities for shared futures.
Ultimately, this research taught me that studying “them” is inseparable from studying “us.” I reflect on anthropology’s role in shaping which stories we tell not only of marginality and struggle, but also of resilience, partnerships, and becoming.