Abstract
This paper explores how ambiguity can function as a condition for care in participatory health design. Through patient-centred interviews and a participatory workshop, it examines how uncertainty and emergent understanding shape the relational and ethical dimensions of care. The study finds that ambiguity enables participants to remain responsive within unequal structures and to negotiate care through hesitation, metaphor, and embodied expression, highlighting how relational sensitivity operates within asymmetrical power relations. Care is reframed not as a stable act of giving, but as a social process of continual adjustment and mutual dependency. By embracing indeterminacy in design practice, this research shows how ambiguity sustains fragile relations of trust and reciprocity. It argues that care persists not through clarity but through a willingness to dwell with what is uncertain. The paper contributes to ongoing design discourses that view care as a situated, negotiated, and collective practice.
Keywords
Ambiguity; Participatory design; Care ethics; Power relations
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1188
Citation
Mi, X., Siu, K., and Xie, S. (2026) Care through ambiguity: Findings from participatory health design, 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.2026.1188
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Care through ambiguity: Findings from participatory health design
This paper explores how ambiguity can function as a condition for care in participatory health design. Through patient-centred interviews and a participatory workshop, it examines how uncertainty and emergent understanding shape the relational and ethical dimensions of care. The study finds that ambiguity enables participants to remain responsive within unequal structures and to negotiate care through hesitation, metaphor, and embodied expression, highlighting how relational sensitivity operates within asymmetrical power relations. Care is reframed not as a stable act of giving, but as a social process of continual adjustment and mutual dependency. By embracing indeterminacy in design practice, this research shows how ambiguity sustains fragile relations of trust and reciprocity. It argues that care persists not through clarity but through a willingness to dwell with what is uncertain. The paper contributes to ongoing design discourses that view care as a situated, negotiated, and collective practice.