Productive tensions: Ethnographic engagement, complexity, and contradiction

Abstract

This article discusses engagement, complexity, and contradiction as resources for, rather than simply impediments to, good research. Drawing on examples from her own work of the past three decades on body image, commercial sex, and the medical use of marijuana, the author examines the benefits of, as well as some of the challenges presented by, this approach to scholarly practice. © The Author(s) 2010.