A comparativist manifesto for international migration studies

Drawing on thirteen years of fieldwork among Mexican migrants in the United States and Mexico and comparisons of immigration policy throughout the Americas, this paper systematically elaborates the advantages and disadvantages of different kinds of multi-sited studies.A reformed logic of the Millian methods of agreement and difference takes into account the causal connections among the cases.I call for a 'homeland dissimilation' perspective and comparisons of internal and international migration as a way to take off the self-imposed national blinders that pre-determine many of the conclusions of the assimilation and even transnationalism literatures.