Meandering as praxis : participatory designing in entangled coexistence

Abstract

This paper theorizes meandering as a durational, participatory design praxis that resists goal-driven interventionism by embracing indirect, exploratory approaches. Grounded in the social enterprise Soil Trust in rural Hong Kong, the study examines how reclaiming organic waste and regenerating soil health can catalyze societal change. Meandering design navigates structural constraints through relational logic, temporal fluidity, and intentional ambiguity, fostering emergent collaborations across communities, institutions, and nonhuman actors. Drawing on agential realism and strategic indirection, the authors analyze 80 site engagements and 60 interviews using narrative inquiry and analytical abduction. Findings reveal four dynamics—nimble resistance, relational logic, temporal fluidity, and intentional ambiguity—that reconfigure participatory design as ecological accompaniment over time. The paper contributes a transdisciplinary framework for design-led societal transformation, emphasizing local viability, environmental attunement, and collective reinvention. Meandering offers a heuristic for engaging complexity, enabling designers to respond to eco-social crises with humility, adaptability, and long-horizon commitment.