A Manifesto for Quantitative Multi-sited Approaches to International Migration 1 Cris Beauchemin Institut National d’Etudes D emographiques (Ined) BEYOND “METHODOLOGICAL NATIONALISM” International migration involves several countries. Albeit a truism, this affirmation raises very significant issues for academics and policymakers interested in international migration. In a special issue of this journal, Andreas Wimmer and Nina Glick-Schiller pointed in the early 2000s that “methodological nationalism [...] undermined more than a century of migration studies” (2003, 576). They defined “methodological national- ism” as a historical tendency to view the nation-state as a natural con- tainer and unit of analysis in mainstream social sciences, with no exception in migration studies despite the multi-sited nature of migration. As a matter of fact, while migration involves by definition places of origin and destination (while also acknowledging transit countries), research has long been dominated by studies on destination countries, and concur- rently by studies of immigrants within receiving nations. This is exemplified by the seminal studies of the Chicago school of sociology that gave focus on the assimilation of new comers, rather than subsequent return migration. Outmigration, of citizens or among immigrants moving 1 The papers in this issue originate from the Comparative and Multi-sited Approaches to International Migration Conference (Paris, Institut National d’Etudes D emographiques, December 2012). Most of the 30 communications presented at the conference can be con- sulted at: <http://mafeproject.site.ined.fr/en/events/final_conference/>. The event was funded by the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme under grant agree- ment 217206, the Institut National d’Etudes D emographiques (Ined), the Institut de Recherche pour le D eveloppement (IRD), and the Region Ile de France. I am grateful to Katharine Donato who played an instrumental role in the initiation of this collection of papers. I am also deeply grateful to Ellen Percy Kraly for her extraordinary contribution to the editorial preparation of this issue. As IMR editor, she managed the process of peer review of and revision in ways that were stimulating though invisible. © 2014 by the Center for Migration Studies of New York. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/imre.12157 IMR Volume ** Number ** (Fall 2014):1–18 1