Abstract
Pluralism is essential for transformations toward regeneration, to (re)align human activity with holistic planetary health. Systemic design’s pluralistic intentions offer a promising pathway, yet its methodologies rarely match the complexity they aim to engage. The focus often falls on adding new methods instead of examining how methodologies function. As a result, systemic design methodologies struggle to navigate the contextual, epistemic, and cultural differences within plural pathways toward regeneration. This paper argues that systemic design methodologies can negotiate pluralism more effectively when functioning as complex systems themselves: nonlinear, emergent, and relational. Drawing on participatory action research across three diverse communities, I offer a reflexive perspective on engaging with methodological pluralism in practice. I then introduce a visual heuristic showing how plural methodologies can be understood as ongoing dialogues with complexity. This paper aims to support systemic designers in embracing pluralism and emergence as core methodological capacities for regenerative transformations.
Keywords
Reflexivity, place-based, emergence, participatory action research
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1095
Citation
Fitzpatrick, H. (2026) Methodologies as complex systems: Practicing pluralism in systemic design for transformations toward regeneration, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1095
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Methodologies as complex systems: Practicing pluralism in systemic design for transformations toward regeneration
Pluralism is essential for transformations toward regeneration, to (re)align human activity with holistic planetary health. Systemic design’s pluralistic intentions offer a promising pathway, yet its methodologies rarely match the complexity they aim to engage. The focus often falls on adding new methods instead of examining how methodologies function. As a result, systemic design methodologies struggle to navigate the contextual, epistemic, and cultural differences within plural pathways toward regeneration. This paper argues that systemic design methodologies can negotiate pluralism more effectively when functioning as complex systems themselves: nonlinear, emergent, and relational. Drawing on participatory action research across three diverse communities, I offer a reflexive perspective on engaging with methodological pluralism in practice. I then introduce a visual heuristic showing how plural methodologies can be understood as ongoing dialogues with complexity. This paper aims to support systemic designers in embracing pluralism and emergence as core methodological capacities for regenerative transformations.