This study investigates the sequentially occasioned provision of what I term ‘category accounts’ in interaction. Category accounts tap into and make use of normative assumptions about identities and membership categories in order to explain away moments of what the participants view as category deviance. To introduce this concept, I focus on sequences in which speakers’ initiations of repair (e.g., Huh?) are oriented to as indicative of a problem of understanding. In the cases examined here, ...