Using the work of Manuel Castells as a starting point, this article explores the ambivalent relationship between globalisation and European integration and the variety of ways in which the mainstream political science of the EU has attempted to deal with this issue. The analysis here suggests that various ‘mainstreaming’ disciplinary norms induce types of work that fail to address fully the somewhat paradoxical and counter-intuitive range of possible relationships between globalisation and European integration. The article explores critically four possible analytical ways out of this paradox – abandonment of the concept of globalisation, the development of definition precision in globalisation studies, the reorientation of work to focus on globalisation as discourse and inter and post-disciplinarity. The argument suggests that orthodox discussions of the relationship require a notion of social geography that sits at odds with much of the literature on globalisation and while greater dialogue between disciplines is to be welcomed, a series of profound epistemological questions need to be confronted if studies of the interplay between global and social process are to be liberated from their disciplinary chains.