In the previous chapter we identified two distinct modes of engaging with the world strategically, which we termed building and dwelling. In the building mode the agent-strategist is presumed to construct mental representations of the world prior to any practical engagement with it. The dwelling mode of engagement, on the other hand, consists of local adaptations and ingenuity in everyday practical coping, which constitute the kind of micro-strategizing associated with the practice approach to strategy. In acting strategically on an everyday basis, therefore, an agent is acting purposively to deal with immediate concerns at hand but doing so in habituated ways that are consistent with and reinforcing his or her own sense of identity. He or she is also aware, potentially, of the limits of this pragmatic engagement, and of how things might be encountered other than simply as equipment for human ends.

Whereas in the next chapter we develop the sense of strategic limit brought about by dwelling amid things phronetically, in this chapter we begin to develop the dwelling approach by introducing the notion of strategy as a process of wayfinding, in contrast to the conventional idea of strategy-making as a navigational process.