Add to ORKGThis paper critiques migration scholars’ reliance on the ethnic group as a unit of analysis. It argues for the importance of approaching migration studies by examining non-ethnic forms of incorporation and transnational connection. Localities of departure and settlement, especially, as place has been theorized by scholars of neoliberal urban restructuring, proves to be an important entry point for an alternative approach to migration studies. To illustrate this non-ethnic approach to migrant settlement I draw on my exploratory ethnographic research of fundamentalist Christianity as an avenue of migrant local and transnational incorporation. The research was conducted in two small-scale cities, Manchester, New Hampshire, USA and Halle/Saale,...