In the shadow of a man ? A khat trader's journey (Ethiopia, 1974-2025)[Dans l’ombre d’un homme ? Itinéraire d'une commerçante de khat (Ethiopie, 1974-2025)]

Khat is a shrub whose leaves are generally sold by women to men who chew them for their stimulating properties in Ethiopia. In Dire Dawa, Mouna, a famous seller of khat, tells her story, which allows understanding this gendered division of labor by analyzing the ways in which women enter this line of work, their journey of capital accumulation, and their cross-border mobility. They need to resort to family, clan, and matrimonial bonds of dependence to accumulate capital, and between constraints and resources, to cope with the sexualization to which they are exposed due to the social representations associated with khat. From the 1980s to the present day, from intimate negotiations over the price of their merchandise to blackmail over their transnational movements, in the face of male and state violence, the article shows these female traders' ability to act, how they resist or play with gender norms to keep their business afloat and/or make it flourish.