Designerly Research (Ontwerpend Onderzoek) is, as the name indicates, a special kind of doing research. The biggest difference with conventional modes of scientific research is the importance of flexibility and creativity that is present in Designerly Research. Designerly Research is often performed on location with a focus on the empirical and, as such, is a mode of doing research that is very much ‘hands-on’. Doing research this way leads to valuable insights and knowledge on specific phenomenon, practices and things. The knowledge outcome is considered valuable because of its strong connection to the particulars of a situation. The insights that flow from Designerly Research, that flow from moving into various systems and structures from the outside (with strategies specific to the design practice) allow us to reflect on what we already know and helps us envision new possibilities. As a mode of research it is less concerned with saying something definite about things, and is more focussed on being with or around things.
Sociological and anthropological research into ‘knowledge practices’ by researchers and scholars such as Bruno Latour, Tim Ingold, Annemarie Mol, John Law, or Design Researchers such as Kees Dorst, Pieter Jan Stappers, Jeroen Peeters or Thomas Binder shows the importance of understanding the world as taking place in/through meshwork structures. Moreover, it shows how well reflection and Designerly Research can give insight into situated and interconnected systems: discovering how something is in practice, not by looking at the thing from a distance, but by touching it. Not just by naming things but by making them move, making them act in the world. The phrase ‘touch and go’, used to indicate a precarious situation with insecure and unknown outcome, describes the nature of the type of research performed in RE-source, Designerly Research (Ontwerpend Onderzoek). Additionally, it also describes the actual way of doing research quite literally; by touching things and moving with them. The acronym TAG hints towards such type of activity by alluding to the children’s game ‘tag’. Through observing, engaging and intervening on location, in situations with actual people and things, Designerly Research creates an understanding of the net- and meshworks that shape practices, ways of doing and making. Visualizing and trying out new possible futures is a way to intervene within these existing constellations to better understand how our futures might affect us.
We do not move through a silent, static world. To understand the complexity of things it is not sufficient to study them from the outside, to look at them. By performing Designerly Research, we stand up and move in to the world to experience and interact with things in practice. We move and make things move to understand them in all of their complexity.
We are reminded of Ludacris’ 2003 hit song Stand Up: ‘when I move you move’.