Caring with[in] Uncertainty is a chapter that explores design and care as situated, relational practices that unfold within conditions of ongoing uncertainty. Rather than treating care as a commodity or design as a problem-solving tool, we argue that uncertainty is a fundamental and necessary condition of both.

Co-authored with Dr Tom Ainsworth, the chapter draws on collaborative, practice-based research, using the making of Care in Motion as both method and metaphor. Through this process, we introduce the idea of an obligation of care, foregrounding care as an embodied, ethical, and political practice shaped by relationships, emotions, and lived experience.

The chapter forms part of a wider body of my work on design and care, design justice, and post-rational approaches to systems change. The image (above) featured in the chapter and on the book’s cover was co-created as part of the research and writing process.

Caring with[in] Uncertainty appears in The Design of Care (Routledge, 2026), edited by Craig Bremner, Paul Rodgers, Giovanni Innella, and Justin Magee, where it opens the section Design and Care in Context.