Robots are moving from automated manufacturing contexts into the most intimate of social spheres, whereby robots and humans work closely together. One factor contributing to successfully accomplishing tasks in a collaborative manner is how robots’ actions and motions are interpreted by the people around them. Generally, we find that the socio-cultural context deeply impacts the human-robot interdependency, since people are more relaxed when interacting in culturally sensitive ways. As such, while considerable efforts have been made to move away from the robotic mannerisms, fewer efforts have been made to understand how robotic motion may also be culturally dependent. This study presents a participatory framework for designing culturally sensitive robotic movement in HRI. It proposes a design-centric approach to tackling culturally informed and contextually dependent movements in human-robot interaction. We present a new process, including a design toolkit, an open brief and a participatory structure intended to better reflect the cultural context in which the design is being carried. We describe the resulting robot morphologies and outputs, providing insights and initial guidelines to designing contextually and culturally informed robotic movement.