Methodology: From paradigms to paradox

Abstract

This chapter conceptualises as paradoxes ten common challenges to the ethnographer. These include the apparent impossibility of internalising an ‘exotic’ culture while simultaneously maintaining professional distance as well as the expectation for ethnographers to concurrently convey to their subjects both empathy and honesty. Although similar concerns have been extensively debated under the rubric of ethics, this is not the intention for this discussion. Rather, the emphasis here is on both justifying and bolstering the quality and reliability of ethnographic data. To this end, it is argued that paradox must be celebrated rather than concealed or maligned since it is, for the most part, representative of social interaction itself.