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Accepted Paper:
Khat and relationships of transgressive care in a London Somali community.
Guntars Ermansons
(King's College London)
This paper draws on case studies focusing on generational and gendered norms and relationships of care in a London Somali community that shaped the consumption of khat - a mild stimulant drug - before it was banned in the UK in 2014. Some relationships can make care transgressive but no less genuine
Paper long abstract:
A common thread running through contemporary studies of care brings into focus action and practice, which is localised and ethical, and often characterised by indeterminacy, fragility, and messiness of everyday life. Yet, as Emily Yates-Doerr (2014) has noted, seeing care as localised might overlook how being careful in one situation can end up being “devastating in another.” Care can sometimes come close, or be perceived as coming close to harm, disregard, and carelessness. It is at this juncture that I situate my analysis of khat consumption and mental health in a London Somali community. This paper draws on case studies focusing on generational and gendered norms and relationships that shaped the consumption of khat - a mild stimulant drug - before it was banned in the UK in 2014. Biographies and motivations of khat consumers and others around them revealed how relationships can make acts and practices of care transgressive but no less genuine. Therefore, the meaning of care can be understood not only in terms of localised practices, concerns and technologies oriented toward caring from the outset, but also as acts that are not easily identifiable as care and come to challenge what is considered as morally justified and dutiful. Perhaps, more than any other forms, the relationships that resort to transgressive acts of care reveal exactly the human vulnerability that is expressed in a dialectic between need and the assurance that we are or will be cared for as well.