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Paper short abstract

This study utilizes water purification as a technological probe in Palawan, co-investigating socio-technical shifts with indigenous communities through Action Design Research, examining Community Agency resilience under intervention, and reflecting on technology's role as a Just Transition mediator.

Paper long abstract

Mainstream "Just Transition" narratives frequently reproduce asymmetries of agency amid climate extremes and socio-political shocks. Drawing on Berkes (2017), this study examines how modern solutions displace traditional technologies, marginalizing ecological knowledge and eroding Endogenous Explanatory Power within global sustainable development discourses. Using Action Design Research (Sein et al., 2011) and an intersubjective fieldwork perspective, water purification technology serves as a probe to trace Community Agency dynamics under intervention.

The research unfolds in three stages: (1) Relationship Building—go-along interviews reconstruct water histories and build trust; (2) Situational Diagnosis—the socio-technical system reveals how external interventions disrupt traditional knowledge-based circular economies; (3) Reflection and Enlightenment—drawing on Latour (1994), the technology is reframed as an Intermediary Technological Object that exposes its double-edged character, enabling communities to determine their own pathways with full situational awareness.

Technological intervention is not neutral provision but a socio-technical process unsettling local relational structures and triggering agency reconstruction. Efficacy depends on how communities and technology introducers co-learn to "reconstruct resilience"—reclaiming traditional ecological knowledge as explanatory authority over resources. Grounded in Austronesian traditional wisdom, the "Water Knows–Palawan Model" asserts that Just Transition is constituted by a community autonomously choosing and acting after achieving awareness of their own predicament.

Keywords: Just Transition, Socio-technical Systems (STS), Community Agency, Action Design Research (ADR)