Contribution short abstract:

Using autoethnography and African Feminism(s), I explore the impact of changing ecologies on indigenous feminist knowledge, and raise the poignant question of how to pass on life-sustaining traditions when the natural resources essential for these practices are dwindling.

Contribution long abstract:

The Eastern Cape province of South Africa has some of the largest rivers in Southern Africa. Many of the towns through which these rivers run are underdeveloped and isolated from national economic activity and service delivery. As such, Xhosa people- a Bantu ethnic group indigenous to the area- have increasingly relied on rivers for life and livelihoods. With the intensifying and multiple overlapping planetary crises, climate scientists estimate that rivers globally cannot generate sustainable livelihoods for much longer. Less visible is the resultant slow death of cultures and heritage. Xhosa women teach their grandchildren how to make household tools and utensils out of reeds collected along the riverbanks for domestic use and to sell; a common practice which incorporates storytelling and intergenerational knowledge (re)production in crafting. Using autoethnography and African Feminist probing into the attempted erasure of indigenous feminist knowledge as a consequence of changing ecological landscapes, I take seriously the question: When the reeds have all dried out, how do we teach our young the life-sustaining ways of our elders?