The Rooted care lab

A virtual non-academic deinstitutionalized un/learning space for the collective study and practice of care ecologies & how we might weave ourselves and each other into them.

the art & design of bridging futures

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Relational Trust
Weaving connection across divides.

Embodied Inquiry
Co-creating knowledge through practice.

Radical Care
Sustaining each other beyond systems.

Self + Communal Responsibility
Building the worlds to come

The Rooted Care Lab is a virtual embodied co-research laboratory designed to investigate how we might  build relational trust, mutual care, and community together through collective study and embodied practice around the creation of care ecologies.

This journey responds to the challenges and divisions we encounter in our world around the impact of scarcity, race, class and gender divisions, conflict, and other barriers to relationship.

This is not a classroom where answers are given, but a collective workshopping experiment—an invitation to be in the questions together; to research, experiment, cultivate self-reflexivity and bodily capacity. And, ultimately, response-ability for the worlds that come next that we breathe into existence with each choice make and action we take .

We seek to call forward the unique contribution each of us has to shape in our virtual connections and local contexts.

" Design is a conversation about possibility.”
—Arturo Escobar

What is the
Rooted Care Lab?

The focus of the Care Lab is to engage as co-researchers in the study and practice of care. Our project space draws inspiration from participatory action research (PAR), a form of inquiry that aligns with the notion of accompaniment—an approach that sees research as a communal act rather than an endeavor led by an external expert.

In this model, knowledge is not something bestowed but co-created by assemblages of people who engage critically and consciously with the world. Research is not an exclusive skill but a human capacity. As Arjun Appadurai insists, The Right to Research is the right to be curious about life and one’s conditions—the right to make sense of our worlds and to systematically inquire into them.

Throughout this journey, we lean into questions of care ecologies and radical love, grounding ourselves in somatic practices that help us slow down, create space, and be with what emerges. This embodied foundation may be the most critical element of all.

We are living in a time when trust between diverse populations, in governance and institutions is at an all-time low.

Rather than succumbing to despair, we might ask what this moment is calling forward in each of us. What if, instead of relying on institutions as intermediaries for care, we wove those networks of support and relationship directly between us?

The Care Lab recognizes that transformation requires more than the introduction of intellectual concepts or dialogue—it demands an attunement to the locus of world-making that resides within our bodies and the relational field between us.

This is why we need spaces like this—deinstitutionalized, communally-rooted spaces that are not dependent on government funding or institutional oversight but thrive on the contributions of those who believe in this work. Spaces like this reclaim the empowerment of people, honoring our collective agency to research, create, and sustain new ways of being together. By investing in each other, we generate a care ecology that is both resilient and liberated, freed from the constraints of systems that have long dictated the terms of our survival.

Weaving friendship across divides is one of the most vital practices we can engage in today (source unknown). Friendship in this context is not about closeness or even liking everyone we encounter.

In a care ecology, we can recognize one another as friends in the broader sense—people who hold concern for one another’s welfare, even amidst differences or irritations. This kind of friendship invites us to build mutual regard and openness, allowing space for tension and disagreement while still honoring our shared humanity.

Often, those who challenge us the most can become our greatest teachers, guiding us toward deeper self-awareness and collective care.

What we're up to...

Why Now?

“To become what we need to each other, and to find power in friendship, is to become dangerous."

— anonymous

Our Care Lab Activities

Creativity Incubator & Creation Lab

Collective Embodied Study & Practice


How do we cultivate care in a world shaped by disconnection?

The Care Lab is an experimental space for the collective study of care and care ecologies—a place to practice building trust, navigating tensions, and exploring mutual care and creativity. Rather than following a fixed roadmap, we embrace the unknown, co-creating the path as we go. If you're drawn to deep inquiry, embodied practice, and the possibility of forging new ways of being together, we invite you to join us.


How do ideas take root and flourish beyond the spaces that first inspired them?

This initiative supports participants in bringing emergent practices into their own communities, creating ripples of care and connection. It offers scaffolding for what has already been unfolding organically—illuminating patterns, sharing insights, and fostering learning from lived experience.

In a time of renewed focus on local contexts, the Creativity Incubator bridges global inspiration with grounded, actionable steps, empowering participants to cultivate meaningful change where they are.

Our Care Lab Activities

Collective Embodied Study & Practice


How do we cultivate care in a world shaped by disconnection?

The Care Lab is an experimental space for the collective study of care and care ecologies—a place to practice building trust, navigating tensions, and exploring mutual care and creativity. Rather than following a fixed roadmap, we embrace the unknown, co-creating the path as we go. If you're drawn to deep inquiry, embodied practice, and the possibility of forging new ways of being together, we invite you to join us.

Creativity Incubator & Creation Lab


How do ideas take root and flourish beyond the spaces that first inspired them?

This initiative supports participants in bringing emergent practices into their own communities, creating ripples of care and connection. It offers scaffolding for what has already been unfolding organically—illuminating patterns, sharing insights, and fostering learning from lived experience.

In a time of renewed focus on local contexts, the Creativity Incubator bridges global inspiration with grounded, actionable steps, empowering participants to cultivate meaningful change where they are.

Hello, I'm Karine Bell, founder of the Rooted Global Village, a space born from a deep longing for relational transformation. Rooted began in 2020 as an experiment in virtual place-making, bringing people together in shared inquiry, unschooling, embodied study, and creative exploration. Since, it has evolved into a space where learning and practice are in service of collective care and world-building.

Through years of experimentation, we’ve valued the metabolization of experience to make way for possibility, centering celebration, and perspectives that challenge what can become calcified in us; always centering the wisdom of the body, deep listening, and relational risk.  

The Care Lab emerged from this journey as an intentional space to deepen our inquiry into care ecologies—how we build networks of care beyond institutions, how we sustain relational trust, and how we activate creativity and contribution as essential to collective well-being.

We recognize that belonging cannot be forced, and community cannot be assumed—they must be cultivated through practice, through the ways we engage with difference, navigate rupture and repair, and co-create spaces where care is not just an individual act but an interdependent practice. The Care Lab is an invitation to step into this exploration together, where care, creativity, and connection are woven into the fabric of how we study, practice, and build new ways of being.

Karine Bell

how we arrived here.