For over 100 years, the communities adjacent to the Dwesa and Cwebe Forests in South Africa
have been caught in a conflict over natural resources. Residents were forcibly removed from the area for
decades by colonial and apartheid-era governments. After being declared a Nature Reserve in 1978, locals
were fenced out, losing all access to natural resources. Although the communities won a land-claim battle
in 2001, the current management of the reserve still reflects a “fortress conservation” model, where local
people are prohibited from harvesting natural resources, including indigenous vegetables. Remarkably,
the knowledge associated with these foods endures, primarily through the stories, actions, and resistance
of local women.
Using a feminist political ecology framework to illustrate the gendered power dynamics that
mediate the knowledge, valuation, and use of indigenous vegetables, (known locally as imifino), this study
describes how women’s everyday practices, traditions, and resistance strategies are being deployed to
promote indigenous vegetable (imifino) consumption from both the protected area site as well as in
homestead gardens. Analyzing how these local struggles are connected to the wider political discourse on
biodiversity conservation sheds light on how formal management rules and regulations interplay with,
and are negotiated on a daily basis by protected area community members. Results of the study indicate
that a co-management structure that takes women’s knowledge into account could encourage the
sustainable use of these resources and consequently, help maintain the indigenous knowledge associated
with indigenous vegetables (imifino).
A mixed methods approach was taken to gather a holistic picture of the knowledge and practices
surrounding these indigenous vegetables. A variety of qualitative and visual methods including participant
observation, key informant interviews, facilitated group discussions, free-listing of species, forest walks,
community history mapping, and participatory photography were chosen to gain in-depth understanding
of indigenous knowledge, community challenges, and everyday strategies of adaptation and resistance to
current reserve management. A household survey of 80 homesteads in Southern Hobeni Village was used
to provide information on the different varieties of imifino grown in homestead gardens (igadi) as well as
intra-household data on the gendered labor dynamics for cultivating these varieties.