Qat Consumption in Soqotra: Diaspora Formation and Cultural Conversion

This article presents the first study of a recently incorporated destination in the diffusion of a qat chewing culture as part of a process of diaspora formation among economic migrants from mainland Yemen to Soqotra Island. Soqotra as a sub-national entity of Yemen is subject to its sociocultural influences. The article focuses on one particular manifestation of these influences, namely qat chewing, which is leading to a gradual process of cultural conversion among an increasing proportion of the island’s urban population. This process is discussed in terms of the main domains in which its local effects are manifested: the urban milieu as a generative matrix of consumption; the nature of local market politics that regulate supply and demand; the rituals of consumption and their ramifications on islander/mainlander relations; the transformation of the communal ethos of sociability; the policy dilemmas of the local government. Finally, the article concludes with an assessment of the adequacy of the liberal policy orthodoxy for regulating qat in Soqotra, and of the likely future of qat consumption among Soqotran youths.