Geographic scope: While the majority of other works focus on one or two regions of the world (e.g., India; Peru and Italy; Australia), this volume is uniquely ambitious in its vast geographical reach, since it includes in-depth, ethnographically collected data from five different (sub-)continents: North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Thematic ambition: The book does not, like most other books on related subjects, address one theme (e.g. citizenships; agency; family; economics) or one particular form of migration (e.g. retirement migration). Rather, the edited volume sheds light on various convergences and points of confluence among numerous phenomena and experiences that produce and are generative of care(giving) in the context of transnational migration: political economy, religion, violence, community, morality, love and abandonment, and subjectivity and personhood.

Method/ethnography: This book also differs from "competing titles" by offering an anthropological engagement with the subject grounded in a carefully-crafted and thorough ethnography.