Combining methods in social scientific research has recently gained momentum through a research strand called Mixed Methods Research (MMR). This approach, which explicitly aims to offer a framework for combining methods, has rapidly spread through the social and behavioural sciences, and this article offers an analysis of the approach from a field theoretical perspective. After a brief outline of the MMR program, we ask how its recent rise can be understood. We then delve deeper into some of the specific elements that constitute the MMR approach, and we engage critically with the assumptions that underlay this particular conception of using multiple methods. We conclude by offering an alternative view regarding methods and method use. Keywords Data, field analysis. Mixed methods research. Multiple methods. Reflexivity. Sociology of science The interest in combining methods in social scientific research has a long history. Terms such as Btriangulation,^Bcombining methods,^and Bmultiple methodsĥ ave been around for quite a while to designate using different methods of data analysis in empirical studies. However, this practice has gained new momentum

Exploring the 'globalization' of the social sciences, this article first presents an historical interpretation of how transnational exchange in the social sciences has evolved. Earlier forms of international circulation are distinct from the more global arrangements that have emerged since the late twentieth century. Considering this globalizing field in more detail, it is argued that its predominant characteristic is a core-periphery structure, with a duopolistic Euro-American core, multiple semi-peripheries and a wide range of peripheries. Focusing on the global level, much of the existing research, however, has neglected the emergence of transnational regional structures. The formation of a transnational European field of social science is taken as an example of this process of transnational regionalization. The social sciences worldwide can thus be seen as a fourlevel structure. In addition to the local and national level, transnational regional as well as global structures have gained increasing importance and a better understanding of 'globalization' requires more precise studies of both levels, in their own right as well as in their evolving interconnectedness. Keywords Globalization, internationalization, transnational regionalization of the social sciencesOne of the vital but easily overlooked characteristics of the production of knowledge is its dependency on how previous forms of knowledge have circulated. Ideas build on other ideas, and access to this stock of knowledge is an essential component in the opportunity structure of scientific work. Whereas historical studies of the sciences tend to be centred on the most authoritative producers and sites of production, it is no less important to study patterns of circulation and their consequences for how knowledge is