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

Historical accounts of the social sciences have too often accepted local or national institutions as a self-evident framework of analysis, instead of considering them as being embedded in transnational relations of various kinds. Evolving patterns of transnational mobility and exchange cut through the neat distinction between the local, the national, and the inter-national, and thus represent an essential component in the dynamics of the social sciences, as well as a fruitful perspective for rethinking their historical development. In this programmatic outline, it is argued that a transnational history of the social sciences may be fruitfully understood on the basis of three general mechanisms, which have structured the transnational flows of people and ideas in decisive ways: (a) the functioning of international scholarly institutions, (b) the transnational mobility of scholars, and (c) the politics of trans-national exchange of nonacademic institutions. The article subsequently examines and illustrates each of these mechanisms.

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In this paper we address the question whether and how the appreciation of popular music has globalized in the four decades since the mid-1960s. We use information from American, Dutch, French, and German popular music charts from 1965 through 2006 and find no corroboration for an overall trend towards an internationalization of hits. Yet, important shifts are noticeable underneath the surface. First, we find evidence for increasing national diversity, increasing Americanization the period up until 1989 and from the 1990s onwards for increasing popularity of national music. At the end of the paper we discuss the relevance of our findings.

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On the basis of an empirical analysis of the emergence, spread and transformation of No Holds Barred fighting contests during the 1990s, we argue that Norbert Elias's model of sportization represents a fruitful but not sufficiently differentiated framework for understanding the recent development of combat sports and fighting contests. Although the martial arts in the 20th century provide striking examples of processes of sportization and para-sportization, the rise of No Holds Barred events in the 1990s represented an opposing trend, a process of de-sportization. The analysis of No Holds Barred contests demonstrates that both sportization and de-sportization trends depend primarily on the interests of the organizers, and in particular on the degree to which they rely on the perspectives of practitioners, spectators, or viewers. The decisive factor for the predominance of the latter perspective was the formation of a new and poorly regulated market for visual material, which emerged with pay-per-view television. This allowed media entrepreneurs to commercialize nonsanctioned events, which depend primarily on the demands and fantasies of viewers who are less interested in the specifics of particular sports or games than in the antinomian excitement produced by the transgression of the rules and conventions of ordinary life. The case of No Holds Barred fighting thus suggests that new markets for visual material are likely to become an important factor in the development of spectator sports and sport-like forms of entertainment. It also suggests that regulatory regimes are an essential feature for the actual outcome of the changes that these new markets may bring about. Public pressure eventually led to the disappearance of No Holds Barred events from the major US cable television networks and from the full contact fighting scene in most Western European countries. In response, various initiatives worked towards a re-sportization of the matches, a process that has led to the transformation of No Holds Barred tournaments into Mixed Martial Arts matches.