Preserving Coastal Legacies: Empowering Namibian Communities through Augmented Reality

With a particular focus on the ocean, this research examines the significance of the numerous ways Namibian coastal communities benefit and relate to the ocean and investigates ways in which digital technologies, with a focus on augmented reality (AR), can support, record, and preserve ocean Indigenous and experiential knowledge, culture, and relationships for posterity. Employing a participatory design approach, and incorporating community-based co-design and rapid ethnography principles, this research collaborated with formal and informal coastal communities and engaged with them in in-depth focus group workshops, discussing and exploring facets of ocean knowledge, histories, relationships, and cultures. Consequently, this research collaborated with research participants to co-produced an AR application titled Efuta Letu Sida Hurib (Translated as ’Our ocean, Our ocean’ in Oshiwambo and Khoekhoegowab) that supports, records and preserves ocean Indigenous and experiential knowledge, culture and relationships for posterity.