Whole Body Knowing: An Embodied and Relational Knowledge Framework for Emerging Technologies, Research, and Practice

This paper introduces Whole Body Knowing (WBK), an embodied and relational framework that is both theoretical and practical, expanding what counts as knowledge in science. Inspired by Indigenous research paradigms and Two-Eyed Seeing, and informed by feminist epistemologies and cognitive science, WBK treats relation, embodiment, reflexivity, and care as essential to rigorous inquiry. Using the case of RiverBot, a water chatbot reframed from a technical expert to a relational guide, the article shows how discomfort, reflexive practice, and community accountability can serve as evidence and design principles. WBK functions as both recipe and practice, with five guiding actions (indicators, processes, guideposts, implementation, evaluation) and six ingredients (relational stance, somatic attunement, reflexive accountability, narrative methods, ethical data practices, iterative praxis cycles). Together, these elements create a flexible yet rigorous methodology that responds to urgent calls for ethical and novel approaches in technology, research, and application, leading to transformational change. WBK is particularly applicable to the field of emergent technologies for societal good and is offered as an applicable yet evolving framework towards sciences that are accountable, situated, and whole.