Indigenous knowledge and the adoption of vaginal practices among rural women: Insight from Tsholotsho, Zimbabwe

The study of vaginal practices in Africa has predominantly been through the Western hegemonic biomedical lens to ascertain their impact on women’s health. This article is extracted from an ethnographic study on vaginal practices in the rural village of Tshitatshawa in the Tsholotsho district in Zimbabwe. A qualitative approach in data collection was adopted with the use of qualitative research methods, which include in-depth interviews, partial observations and key participant interviews. A total of 23 female and 20 male participants were selected to participate in the study using snowball sampling. Thematic and content analysis were used as qualitative data analysis methods, together with ATLAS.ti as a scientific data analysis method. The study explored vaginal practices as indigenous knowledge (IK) with its foremost goal to improve the lives of women. Vaginal practices are IK that is embedded in culture. It examines the influence of IK on women’s adoption and use of vaginal practices for their health and wellness. This article tackles the preponderant view that positions vaginal practices as primitive. This article argues that vaginal practices are part of IK that is used to mitigate different challenges that women face in traditional societies and ought to be understood and preserved as such. The motives for the use of vaginal practices are driven by the need to meet cultural and social expectations of womanhood embedded in local IK. The study concludes that the use of vaginal practices provides more benefits than harm. In addition, the study shows that there is much more to the use of vaginal practices than for commonly perceived sexual reasons; vaginal practices are important IK used for women’s health and wellness. Contribution: The study contributes to the decoloniality discourse, and it highlights the role of coloniality in the production and control of knowledge. It argues for the need to decolonise knowledge systems and centres of knowledge, which tend to disregard the importance of IK.