Working misunderstandings and notions of collaboration: Towards a framework of working misunderstanding as analytical category for ethnographic insight

In a direct sense of the word, a “mis”-understanding is an understanding, but not in the “right” normatively expected direction. It therefore enables access to diverging viewpoints of the interacting parties. Consequently, misunderstandings can be regarded as an opportunity rather than a threat to ethnographic insight. By introducing the concept of working misunderstandings, this article illustrates in fact their productive (positive) role to facilitate social interaction on the basis of various accounts from literature. Derived from the diverging applications of the concept in ethnographic studies, a quadrant typology is proposed to structure working misunderstandings as analytical category. The suggested framework aims to facilitate a more precise discussion on working misunderstandings and their systematic employment in ethnographic research. The ethnographic example deals with a working misunderstanding between the anthropologist and her interlocutors on “collaboration” in a multi-national professional servicing firm in Mumbai, India.