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The study of political and social violence and conflict has expanded in recent decades, concurrent with a rise in the use of mixed methods research (MMR) throughout the social sciences. This article examines how methods are best integrated in studies of violence and conflict, critically reviewing examples from previous prominent works and suggesting directions for future research. I explore the benefits of MMR for understanding structures, agency, and processes related to violence and conflict, and the opportunity MMR offers to influence a broader academic and policy audience. MMR can improve the accordance of theories and empirical studies with the complexities of social reality and enhance understanding of the causes, consequences, and potential remedies of violence and conflict.Keywords violence, intrastate conflict, interstate conflict, structure, agencyThe study of violence and conflict has been expanding in recent decades at all levels of analysis, from interpersonal violence to interstate warfare, concurrent with increasing methodological development and rising popularity of mixed methods research (MMR) across the social sciences. This article argues that MMR increases our leverage on complex puzzles in the study of violence and conflict and is likely to reward scholars who use this approach with valuable empirical insights that will aid in theory testing and development.I present arguments for the utility of MMR in the study of different types of sociopolitical violence and conflict, and examples and critiques are provided of prominent existing mixed methods violence and conflict research, highlighting important lessons with regard to internal and external validity. I then offer a new typology of the presentation of evidence from different methods in MMR and discuss how MMR can increase the consumption and impact of research by appealing to audiences across methodological persuasions. Directions for future research are examined, such as increased incorporation of experimental evidence, vignettes, and formal models, and I consider potential difficulties in conducting MMR on the sensitive and complex subjects of violence and conflict. As we study the motivations and behaviors of violent individuals, groups, and states, it is beneficial to use all the methods at our disposal to understand violence and conflict and to work toward the normative goal of reducing the incidence of violence,

This paper examines the drivers of male perpetration of violence against adult family members and intimate partners in Cape Town, South Africa. Data on 1,369 young men from the Cape Area Panel Study are analyzed and significant causal pathways are examined for the full sample and for disaggregated samples of African and coloured respondents. Socioeconomic disadvantage plays a role in a culture of patriarchal violence, but its effects are largely mediated by behavioral factors such as routine alcohol consumption and having concurrent sexual partners, and norms of acceptance of violence against women. Different factors emerge as predictors of violence in the African and coloured samples. The findings of the quantitative analysis are illustrated with evidence from 45 qualitative interviews that address the role of violence in family and gender relations in Cape Town. Economic interventions are of uncertain efficacy give South Africa's difficulties since the end of apartheid in improving economic opportunities for the poor; thus interventions targeting norms and behavior hold the most promise for reducing family and intimate partner violence in the near term.

Researchers studying conflict, violence, and human rights in dangerous settings across the globe face a complex set of ethical, personal, and professional dilemmas. Especially in more positivist fields and professions, there is pressure to conduct and present research as 'objective'. Yet the reality of field research in violent and conflict-affected settings is much messier than ideals in methodology textbooks or the polished presentation of field data in much published work. I argue that rather than the imposition of blanket positivist standards of replicability and research transparency, research in violent settings needs to draw lessons from interpretivist ideas and methodologies about the researcher's role in the process of data gathering, analysis, and presentation. I focus on three key issues: reflexivity, temporality, and the geography of research between 'field' and 'home,' drawing on personal experiences conducting research on conflict, violence, and postconflict society in Liberia, Nicaragua, South Africa, and Uganda. I show how these three issues practically, theoretically, and ethically conflict with replicability and transparency demands. Through a practice of reflexive openness, however, positivist-leaning researchers can more honestly and ethically reconcile realities of research with professional expectations in the field and after returning. Beyond the omnipresent ethical imperative to protect human subjects, researchers in violent and conflict-affected settings must engage in various ethical, mental, and professional balancing acts while living in the field, interacting with research participants, recording and analyzing data, and reporting findings. Researchers in more positivist fields must determine how to reconcile their experiences in the field and emotional orientations toward research participants with the 'objectivity' that their disciplines or employers may expect in data gathering and analysis. Balancing these priorities can be a struggle even in more reflexive fields like ethnographic sociology and critical geography (e.g. Nilan 2002; Woon 2013). An