About Khat..

These 4 articles have addressed the topic of Khat in Somalians’ and Yemens’ communities.

In “pop articles on qat”, it discusses the heated debate about Khat socially what the pros and cons in partaking Khat are. There is FDA, a.k.a “U.S. Food and Drug Administration” advisory on Khat which explains how the drug is to be used. This has offered some good statistics in seeing people’s habits in their consumption with Khat in Rome. It is regarded as illegal only when DEA, a.k.a. “Drug Enforcement Administration” says so, therefore people define Khat for themselves which therefore can result in misusing it. This explains for the article of having a Health Guide for Khat Users that gives hints which might be of help to minimize the risks with 11 points. I personally find this funny because it is like showing a comparison how to crack cocaine in appropriate dosage. This cloudiness in the use of Khat (For example: it is legal to chew but illegal to import Khat in Canada) has also led to two (Somali) Canadians smuggling Khat through Detroit Airport.

In comparison to “Bundles of Choice: Variety and the Creation and Manipulation of Kenyan Khat’s Value”, “pop articles on qat” is a stack of newspaper clippings that briefly describes the controversial issue of Khat and how the government in the US has given guidelines to how people should use it while, the previous article “Bundles” is a more detailed, thorough discussion of what Kenyan Khat (Miraa) is, the literature on value and its relevance to miraa, describes variable used in distinguishing the many different types of miraa., describes how consumers associate themselves with certain varieties and suggests why some varieties are more valued- culturally and economically- than others. The subtitles are clear and useful to help reader follow through the whole piece of argument in first understanding what Miraa is and different kinds of Miraa there are, then the values of Miraa and how it is linked to the idea of migration of how Somalians understand Miraa. It was interesting to find a constant and fluid change between the subject of “I” and plain general statement as one can’t usually find this mixture of narrative styles in a research paper.

Another similar way of writing about Khat is “Khat and the creation of tradition in the Somali diaspora”, this article discusses how Khat is a controversial topic because it is a tradition in the Somali diaspora. Instead of simply seeing the cons that Khat can bring in health- wise, Axel Klein has helped us to Khat from a cultural perspective in understanding why there the Somalis take Khat. One reason suggested was because of how there is unemployment, marginalization, social exclusion, family breakdown and poor health within the Somali communities and these partly cause the possible misuse of Khat. The writer has helped to explain this through the use of the subtitles, “Tradition and History”, “Khat in global market”, “campaigning against Khat use”, “the social context of khat use by Somalis in the UK”, “the Somali Khat tradition”, “Khat and the invention of tradition”. The paper is finished with “Khat and the invention of tradition” which is echoing the first subtitle “Tradition and history” how different pattern of Khat use in the UK, it is the “false memory” or creation of tradition that holds the key to many of the associated problems. Somalis didn’t really question or identify Khat is part of their culture without fully understanding the historical origin of this unhealthy consumption pattern. That leads to some sort of guideline, how etiquette is for appropriate use, and restrictions against excess. (58,59) Despite this fact, Axel Klein concluded Somalis in the UK still regard khat chewing as part of their tradition and culture.

“Peripheral Visions- Publics, Power and Performance in Yemen”, this article is a comparatively a very dense to the previous 3 articles. It is the longest one and the hardest one to understand. It is talking about Khat in a more political and public relational context.

2 Questions for Thought:

(1) Do we have a judgement for what is a good diasporic object? Khat is cultural and social to the Somalis, as a tradition, but taking in Khat can be destructive to health.

(2) From what I’ve been learning so far, I never thought of studying object diaspora can possibly relate to a bigger picture of legalization of drugs. Is there any other implication of studying object diaspora besides this? Should we still celebrate the use of an object even if it is potentially not healthy, while still brings cultural groups of people together?