Preserving the Haenyeo Legacy

About

Background

The culture and traditions of the Haenyeo (female divers) embody courage, women’s independence and resilience, and a harmonious coexistence with nature. However, today they face serious challenges. The number of Haenyeo is declining, rapid climate change threatens their long-standing way of life, and the widening generational gap makes it increasingly difficult to pass down the unique wisdom and values of the Haenyeo to younger generations.

Games offer a creative way to highlight the cultural significance of the Haenyeo and share their inspiring stories with people of all ages around the world. By reimagining the unique strength and traditions of the Haenyeo through games, we can bridge generational divides, ensure the living spirit of the Haenyeo continues into the future, and create opportunities for meaningful social impact. This project began with a simple yet profound question:

“How can we design a game that elevates the wisdom and cultural heritage of the Haenyeo, preserves the diving tradition for future generations, empowers women’s potential, and inspires empathy and social change among players?”

This collaborative project is carried out by the Games Research Lab at Brunel University of London in UK and the Games and Life Lab at KAIST in South Korea, in partnership with the Sinye-ri Haenyeo Association, and the Haeneyo Museum in Jeju. The first phase of the project was supported by the Leverhulme Trust International Fellowship scheme in UK from June to September 2025."

Project Goals

1. Co-design a game that reflects and celebrates the Haenyeo community’s ecological knowledge, traditional culture, and female agency
2. Transform the game into a cultural platform to digitally archive Haenyeo heritage and connect it to future generations
3. Game design informed by behavior change theories—including Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and Social Cognitive Theory (SCT)—to create an engaging experience
4. Create an empathetic learning environment for both local communities and global players through interactive storytelling and gameplay
5. Through gameplay Inspire individual action on climate change by weaving indigenous Haenyeo culture and knowledge into personal understandings of climate change on marine environments encouraging sustainable practices at an individual level.

Inspiration Game Design

We propose the term Inspiration games, to describe those games that are not only meaningful and engaging but also capable of raising player’s awareness of socio-cultural values and fostering behavioral change through positive experiences.

Inspiration games are inherently connected to social and cultural contexts. Therefore, close collaboration with relevant communities is essential to ensure authenticity and enhance accountability in a value-driven design process.

We pay careful attention to the collaborative process of game design, ensuring that the values pursued by the community and participant groups are thoughtfully reflected in our design work.

Design With Care

We argue that putting care at the very centre of collaborative game design, especially that which involves designing with communities of interest, indigenous or otherwise, ensures a shared vision, and facilitates a more honest and authentic process that is more likely to produce an output that is true to the values and expectations of all collaborators.

Designing with care is the responsibility of the collaboration initiators, often designers and/or researchers who may or may not be members of the community. We use the term ‘care’ to embrace all the actions necessary to facilitate, nourish, and sustain the interpersonal and interdisciplinary relationships necessary to the advancement of research and informed design of the game.