Managing misunderstandings: The role of language in interdisciplinary scientific collaboration

This article explores how scientists communicate with each other in interdis-ciplinary collaborative work. It is based on ethnographic research conducted with one such group, which is building a predictive computer model of heat transfer in prostate tissues. The analysis identifies strategies scientists use in their communication practices, including managing different understandings of the validity of knowledge, partial understandings among participants, and interpretive discipline crossing in group meetings. The ideas of productive misunderstandings and of registration as correlating distinct knowledge domains are used to interpret how scientists must manage their unshared backgrounds as part of the collaborative scientific work