The everyday life and everyday dreams of Kenyan khat traders

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article traces the everyday and not-so-everyday rhythms and temporalities of the Kenyan khat trade, using ethnographic case studies from various Kenyan towns to explore how the drug fits into and structures the lives of those engaging with it. Retailing khat involves precise rhythms linked to the daily cycle of khat’s supply networks, but also more expansive temporalities. It also involves navigating key aspects of Kenyan urban life, while creating a space of support that urban traders rely upon. Tracing the everyday life of Kenyan khat traders gives insight into the moral communities generated by the trade in a ‘drug’, communities critical for enabling traders to overcome the common crises faced within Kenya’s informal economy. They are also critical in helping some traders fulfil hopes and dreams outside of a life structured around khat. As with other drugs, the ordinary economies, communities and cultures that form around their ‘social lives’ subvert typical notions of drugs as extraordinary, malevolent things; spending time with those who animate their social lives reveals how ordinary these substances and their social worlds can be in an era where ‘war on drugs’ framings of them and their traders and users as deviant and immoral still dominate.