Presentation short abstract

This work explores Cederberg foodways rooted in “health from the soil.” Through walking, gathering veldkos, cooking, and shared storytelling, it traces how land-based practices endure despite dispossession, and how community visions imagine decolonial, sovereign food futures.

Presentation long abstract

Gesond uit die grond (“health from the soil”) is a guiding expression within the Cederberg communities. It speaks to more than nutrition: it centres land as the ground of healthy food systems and points to relational, land-based foodways that have persisted through centuries of dispossession, conservation enclosures, and colonial control over plants, labour, and food. Grounded in community voices and relational ways of knowing, shared while wandering through the land, gathering veldkos (wild foods and herbs), cooking together, and listening to food stories, this contribution traces how local foodways remain rooted in deep relationships with Earth and with one another.

Using co-creative methods, the research traces the everyday practices through which people enact survival and resistance, as well as the ongoing challenges that undermine food sovereignty. Through “dream weaving” and a collective arts-and-film process, the work explores foodways as a circular continuum linking past, present, and future through people’s lived realities. The community visions offer glimpses of what a decolonial food system could look like and show how gesond uit die grond — food rooted in reciprocal human–nature relationships — continues to anchor local aspirations for food sovereignty.