Comparative Efforts: Taking the Mediterranean as a Context.

Comparative efforts commonly used in the social sciences has framed the Mediterranean as a region characterized by convergence. In Western Mediterranean societies, the existing division between North and South along with the differences in socio-economic changes of Southern Europe compared to Northern and Eastern Europe make comparative agendas problematic. The Mediterranean age continues to be a space in constant transformation, as it had already been characterized by Ferdinand Braudel (1985) many years ago. This paper presents a comparative effort that enables an analysis of the Mediterranean in the context of globalization that is further elaborated in the recently published book The Mediterranean in the Age of Globalization (Transaction Publishers). This effort is developed using the case of globalization and migration across several countries across Western Mediterranean societies. The aim of this paper is to reflect the problems around comparative work taking various settings as examples: the sociological tradition, the migration axis as an interpretative key, as finally, the Mediterranean as the background for unity and comparative studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]