Khat-chewing, Moral Spacing and Belonging: Sociological Insights into the Cultural Space of the mafrish in the Leisure Lives of Older and Middle-aged British-Somali Males

This paper explores the relationship between khat-chewing and feelings of collective sociality amongst older middle-aged men living in Britain's Somali diaspora. The research's core investigates feeling moral connectivity, a sense belonging with others based around shared reading Somali-British identity. Here, how leisure practice space mafrish symbolises this through promoting conventional understandings Somaliness, connected to traditional readings masculinity While such is understood offer site for who chew khat, it also explored creates conflicts, particularly those question 'imagined community' constructed spaces. analyses highlight fractures families broader community, instigating cultural dissonance women some youth, problematising foundations identity community sessions.