The prevention and sustainable management of biological invasions depends on an effective integration of environmental, social and economic components in management strategies (D. L. Larson et al., 2011). This implies that an understanding of the socio-economic dimensions of biological invasions is as important as the knowledge held in the fields of biology, taxonomy and other scientific specializations. In spite of the obviously strong human and social dimensions of the invasion process, impacts of invasive alien species and their management (Shackleton, Shackleton, et al., 2019), a 2017 study found that more than 90 per cent of research publications on biological invasions since 1958 were related to ecology and environment, while only 3.2 per cent of the publications primarily addressed socioecological dimensions (Vaz et al., 2017). Similarly, only 3 per cent of 364 research articles related to invasive alien species produced by South Africa’s iconic Working for Water Programme between 1995 and 2017 addressed human dimensions associated with invasive alien species (Abrahams et al., 2019).