Targeting khat or targeting Somalis? : A discourse analysis of project evaluations on khat abuse among Somali immigrants in Scandinavia

BACKGROUND – In Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the use of the psychoactive plant khat is widely seen as a social and health problem exclusively affecting the Somali immigrant population. Several projects by governmental and municipal bodies and agencies have been initiated to reduce khat use and abuse within this target population. AIM – This article analyses the khat abuse discourse as it is presented in evaluation reports describing projects initiated by the social services to reduce khat abuse. METHODS – Six publicly available and formally evaluated khat projects conducted in the Scandinavian countries were found, and these evaluation reports were subjected to a Foucauldian discourse analysis. The “What’s the problem represented to be?” approach was used to generate questions, which were then applied to the material. RESULTS & CONCLUSIONS – The problem of khat abuse is represented to be that it is the cause of unemployment, lack of integration and relationship issues among Somali immigrants. The analysis shows that the notion of cultural competence is used instrumentally to govern the target population and that the Somali immigrant group is exclusively targeted. This instrumental use of cultural competence partly places the onus on the “Somali community” itself to reduce khat use, which may engender stigmatisation of Somali immigrants in general. The author maintains that an overreliance on cultural explanations overlooks socioeconomic issues and that the focus should be on potentially problematic patterns of khat use rather than Somali immigrants in general