Being awake to Ma: designing in between-ness as a way of becoming with

Co-designing is an activity based on emergence where constituents are mutually changing towards purposeful outcomes. Here, I draw on the Japanese philosophy of Ma as 'between-ness' to explore how we are transforming and becoming together among this heterogeneity. Yet, if emergence of potentiality is hard to articulate, it is even harder to understand. As we design, we are embedded within and inscripted by conditions that we cannot quite touch or see visibly, yet manifests through its evolution. Awakening to this in-between presence is a necessary start because co-designing is performed and emerges from relational sensitivity. Here, I entangle Ma with actor-network theory (ANT) to orient our senses towards that which have yet assembled or actioned. Latour describes these as empty spaces of a network, void and 'plasma' that also has agency. If ANT primarily helps us see the flow of actions among being and non-beings, Ma as between-ness can re-situate us in emergence and contingency. Seen this way, co-designing can be ways to bring others along on this journey of uncertainty in a pursuit to create 'empty' in-betweens within and among ourselves as we mutually become together through inter-relatedness.