The article attempts to elucidate tensionless ethnography against the backdrop of three contemporary processes: STS ethnography, innovation policies, and the Mode 2 society. An ethnographic approach was utilized to generate the initial problem of the ‘tensionless’, which is continuously resolved by close readings of research literature and documents on innovation policies. Tensionless ethnography is described as a method in which the conceptual objects and attitude are conceived as similar among the ethnographer and the Others. As the academic world of ethnography becomes an assimilated part of the world of policy and industry, it could be argued that we are about to lose a self-reflexive qualitative approach. Therefore, it seems urgent to re-establish an ethnographic world in which we can exercise critical inquires in innovation policy.