Cultural Research & Strategic Sensemaking | Design Research

      I QUESTION WHAT

      MAKES SENSE TOO SOON.

      I help design products and strategies grounded in people's lived realities, relations, identities and histories — uncovering flawed assumptions before they scale into costly decisions.

      25+ years in Global research · Latin America & Iberia · Working globally

      MY APPROACH

      CONTEXT IS NOT SCENERY.

      I see context through people's histories, relations and ways of belonging and making sense of the world.

      My research pays attention to what happens within people and between them — in their bodies, everyday life and the spaces they inhabit.

      FROM RESEARCH TO DESIGN & DECISION

      RESEARCH TAKES SHAPE IN THE ENCOUNTER, THROUGH THE RELATION WE CREATE.

      For me, fieldwork is also feelwork.

      I don't do fieldwork as a spectator. I become part of the encounter, engaging with people and the contexts they inhabit.

      Knowledge emerges through that relation, not simply from the answers people give.

      And the encounter changes me too. It reshapes my understanding, challenges my assumptions and opens new possibilities for design, strategy and decision-making.

      WHAT I DO

      A QUESTION. A PRODUCT. A DECISION.

      I work with questions that need reframing, products still open to change and decisions that need examining before they travel too far.

      01 — DESIGN RESEARCH

      I RESEARCH FROM WITHIN THE ENCOUNTER

      I don’t research local variations of a universal consumer. I work with people within their lived realities — their histories, relations, bodies, territories and ways of knowing.

      I design qualitative research and personally moderate sessions in Spanish, Portuguese and English. Through immersion and creative exploration, I stay open to what emerges in the encounter.

      02 — STRATEGIC SENSEMAKING

      WHAT WE DESIGN EMERGES IN RELATION.

      I use exploration, co-creation, embodied and art-based processes, and prototyping to investigate what words alone may not reveal.

      What people try, resist, change or create becomes part of the research itself — shaping concepts, products, formulations and experiences while they are still open to change.

      03 — CULTURAL ADVISORY

      FOLLOW THE ASSUMPTION BEFORE IT SCALES.

      I start with the decision at stake and work backwards.

      I often see the same pattern: an assumption enters a model, the model drives a decision, and the decision scales — often before anyone realises what was missing.

      I examine those assumptions against lived realities before they become products, strategies or costly commitments at scale.

      FROM FIELDWORK

      MY FEELWORK NOTES

      WHEN ASSUMPTIONS SCALE

      An assumption doesn't stay in a research report. It can end up in a formula, a design, a factory, on shelves — and cost millions.

      After 25+ years of fieldwork and Global research, I have stories worth telling about the assumptions I've encountered, the realities I've seen overlooked and the decisions they can shape.

      READ MY NOTES →

      LET'S TALK →

      WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON?

      Tell me what you're exploring, what you're questioning or what you need to decide.
      I'd love to hear about it.

      mara@designembodiment.com