Coffee, Immigration, and Irish Identity

If you walk through the quays of Dublin, you will see several statues of haggard, weary

families looking westward toward the ocean. These monuments, some with inscriptions referring

to Ireland as “The Poor Old Woman” or ‘Roisin Dubh” (The Black Rose) represent the scores of

Irish families who fled famine, terrorism, and economic collapse at home and immigrated to the

United States, Australia, and other nations as refugees. Interspersed within these monuments to

Ireland’s various waves of mass emigration are banners sporting nationalistic and protectionism-

oriented slogans. They warn of the cultural and economic dangers from allowing too many

immigrants to flood into the small island nation. One particularly blunt banner read “Get the feck

out! We’re full!”. Simultaneously the media and “popular opinion” in Dublin, a town that thrives

on tourism, praises the openness of European Union membership and mocks English voters for

approving Brexit. Ireland is nothing if it is not a paradox. That is a constant theme that will run

not only this paper, but more than likely my entire dissertation.

This juxtaposition between acceptance and protectionism shows just how deep and

confusing the debate over immigration is in Ireland. Ireland, is a former colonized nation that has

sent refugees throughout the world because of centuries of economic hardship, sectarian

violence, famine, and religious persecution is finally stabilizing. For the first time immigrants

and asylum seekers are flooding the Emerald Isle looking for the same opportunities that Irish

emigrants fled their home country to seek. This new new-found economic prosperity, popularly

known as the Celtic Tiger is forcing some tough discussions for the Irish who seem to have one

foot toward the future but an eye on the past. It is in that context that I start this bibliography

review.

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In her article “Debating Refugee Deservingness in Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland” Shay

Cannedy (2018) provides a wonderfully through background on the entanglement between Irish

economics, identity, and its history as both a colonized race and colonializing space. She points

out that questions over accepting refugees and immigrants are new for Ireland as the Irish have

typically emigrated in the face of colonialism, famine, and poverty rather than receive diaspora

from other nations. Ireland’s unique position as a formerly colonized space that has “successfully

appropriated the powerful “white” identity of “civilized” Europe to gain independence, and is

now employing this identity to deny the deservingness of racialized asylum seekers” (Cannedy

2018, 115) puts it in an unusual position in the debate over accepting immigrants.

Ireland’s colonialization dates to at least the med-sixteenth century when the British

declared the Irish as barbaric pagans to justify land grabs. This continued through the nineteenth

century when government and church officials used scientific racism to classify the Celts as

“non-white” based on objective physical characteristics. This subjugation followed Irish Catholic

immigrants to the United States and Britain where white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant (WASP)

identity was the vertex of the racial and ethnic hierarchy. In the United States, Irish immigrants

were eventually able to earn “white” status by distancing themselves and “rising above” the

“black others” who were also passing through Ellis Island at that time. Meanwhile, back in

Ireland a new identity was forming based on a revalorization of the Celtic race where Catholic

morality and ties to the land helped push some to a category of whiteness in opposition to both

Jews and Travellers. Travellers are a small exclusionary ethnic group that is not directly related

to but akin to the Roma of Central and Eastern Europe. They are known for being horse and

produce sellers and live in closed communal housing in the Irish countryside or the slums of

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Dublin. I was warned by several Dubliners to avoid Travellers unless I was looking to get pick

pocketed.

In the early 1990’s Ireland, and the rest of the then newly formed European Union

enjoyed a substantial economic boom. Ireland particularly benefited because of their low tax

rates. Between 1994 and 2008 The Republic of Ireland experienced a period of rapid

unsustainable economic growth. During this period unemployment plummeted causing immense

inflation which skyrocketed the cost of living. For example, residential real estate values

increased three-fold during those 14 years. Anti-immigrant sentiments also increased during the

Celtic Tiger. This is interesting and important because nations are typically more open to

immigration during economic expansions and more restrictive during economic contractions.

Researchers argue that this may be because wealth was already unequally divided and instead of

a rising middle class, the Celtic Tiger deepened the gap between the wealthy and poor and many

Irish were also worried about “the other shoe dropping” economically. The push back against

immigrants could also be in part because Ireland also experienced an unparalleled surge in

immigration that matched the explosive economy. Between 2002 and 2005 the number of people

who registered as non-national on the census skyrocketed from 5.8% to over 10% and the

number of asylum seekers rose from 39 in 1992 to a staggering 11,634 in 2002. While most of

Europe was welcoming to immigrants and asylum seekers during this period, this exponential

rise in migrants caused Ireland to start restricting access to asylum seekers (Cannedy 2018).

In the year 2000 Ireland changed its policy on financially supporting asylum seekers.

Before those new regulations asylum seekers enjoyed the same access to the welfare system as

residents. However a moral panic escalated restrictions and asylum seekers were limited to

provisioned accommodations, a small allowance, and medical care. They are not allowed to seek

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employment and are highly discouraged from securing private accommodations. In 2004 Ireland

closed its “birthright loophole” which had allowed the families of children born on Irish soil to

claim Irish citizenship. The semantics of the debate circled around Ireland’s status as an EU

member nation because once someone gains Irish citizenship they become citizens of the wider

European Union. The rhetoric was couched in the argument that Ireland should be a “good and

responsible neighbor” for other EU states and the decision to close the loophole was just

common sense

These sentiments only worsened after the market crash of 2008 which caused severe

austerity measures. In 2010 the Irish government, which had been a golden child of European

economic prosperity, needed to secure an €85 billion EU/IMF bailout. It took a full five years

before Ireland started climbing out of the recession and unemployment dropped from its highest

rate of 15.2% in January 2012 to 9.8% in May 2015 (Cannedy 2018, 115). While the economy is

rebounding, anti-immigration sentiments remain. Cannedy argues this is because Ireland exists

simultaneously and paradoxically in two worlds, “as both perpetrator and survivor of racism,

both thoroughly racist and determinedly anti-racist.” (2018, 108). The Irish who support anti-

immigrant protectionism policies justify their position and argue against allegations of racism

and xenophobia by pointing to their own history of oppression and relative powerlessness and

marginalized position in the global order today which they claim makes the Irish immune to

being racist. The tension is between asylum seekers and pro-migration activists who argue that

Ireland should be more receptive to immigrants given the nation’s own subaltern past and those

within the country who feel the migrants are “undeserving” or “bogus” especially since the

country is struggling to support its own “natural” citizens in economic recessions (Cannedy

2018, 115). To illustrate this tension Cannedy discusses a recent local election in Dublin where

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an African asylum seeker was racially targeted on social media after announcing his candidacy.

With the one racist comment hundreds came to the candidate’s defense. One poster wrote

“Albert is Irish because he is an Irish citizen. Even if he weren’t, by virtue of being a human

being, he has a right to be in this country and participate in politics. He represents the interests of

ordinary working people in Dublin 15. Criticize the bankers, politicians and developers who

have bleed this country dry” (Cannedy 2018, 102). The above exchange, and the entire article

beautifully illustrates the complex and often contradictory nature of what it means to be Irish and

how the Irish see themselves as both colonized and colonizers in the international debate on

asylum and refugee seekers.

Where Cannedy succeeded at exploring this debate for an academic audience

ethnographically, the late food journalist and celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain captured for a

popular audience filmicly. In Season three, episode one of his popular show No Reservations,

Bourdain visits Belfast in United Kingdom controlled Northern Ireland and Dublin and Cork in

the Republic of Ireland. The show focuses on how the recent influx of economic capital, tourists,

and immigrants have in changing Ireland’s culinary landscape but acknowledges the

simultaneous swell of nostalgia. Like Cannedy’s article, Bourdain highlights this paradox

between a strong reverence for the mythic Irish past, while celebrating its bright multicultural

future. In the program he explains that Belfast, which like its sister city to the south, is

experiencing a massive economic boom fueled by tourism and banking. This is leading to an

influx of immigrants which are spearheading Ireland’s gastronomic revolution. At 21:58 into the

program he is talking with a food critic at an Indian curry shop and the topic of what they are

eating and who owns the cafe comes up after Bourdain acerbically quips about the lack of stews

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and fish and chips during the episode:

Bourdain : “Who else is coming to town? You mentioned a lot of Pols. Bringing food?”

Critic: “Yeah. There are also a lot of people from China.”

Bourdain : “Lot of people from China? That’s a good thing. The more Chinese the better.

There’s money and good food.”

Critic: “Yeah, makes it much more diverse food wise.”

Bourdain: “People from somewhere else, always in my opinion, are a positive

development. For food and the opening of a culture for new ways of looking at the world

and at ourselves. Add an expanding economy and you have a city poised to become the

center of the new Europe.”

Twenty minutes later as the show concludes, “traditional” Irish flute music starts softly

playing in the background as the screen slowly dissolves from one gorgeous postcard inspired

image to the next. Bourdain somberly starts to narrate:

“Being here walking through this beautifully famous countryside it is not hard to

understand why Ireland has so utterly captivated both natives and visitors alike. Why

films like “The Quiet Man” and “Ryan’s Daughter” and so many others become near

mythic parts of all our lives. The shared memory of a place we’ve never even been. Why

songs of green grass and graceful hills have such a hold on those who have seen them and

walked these country lanes. Traditional and rural, County Cork is the opposite end of the

spectrum from the fast and new 21st century Dublin. But, its stillness, silence, and beauty

inform even that busy city. One, I suspect could not exist without the other. It is this

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balance between old and new, the good and bad, the soft roll of the Irish countryside and

the hard realities of some of its city streets, which have always made Ireland a

compelling, heart rending place. That it’s managed to fiercely preserve its cultures and

traditions, while adapting to almost anything. That makes, and has always made this a

special place filled with lovely, maddening, utterly indispensable people, who change all

our worlds for the better. With all the changes that have come and will continue to come,

one hopes it will never change too much” (No Reservations 2007, 42:20).

As Bourdain highlights, popular romanticizing of Irish culture is largely nostalgic. While

Naficy (1993) asserts that nostalgia is about the desire to return to a homeland and with such a

large Irish diaspora it is common to hear people pine for the rolling hills of the Emerald Isle.

Bourdain asserts that one need not visit a place to claim its land in their blood. This falls more in

line with Basu (2007), who follows American heritage tourists looking for their (real or

imagined) Scottish or Irish roots and Berdhal (1999) who argues that “nostalgia is about the

production of a present rather than the reproduction of the past” (202). The large Irish diaspora

combined with the western romanticized notions of having “Celtic” or “Irish” roots muddies the

discussion and obfuscates the debate over who can claim to be Irish. A common anecdote in

Dublin is that every American is Irish and here to find their long-lost family. Kate, a gleefully

acerbic Dublin native I met had a great time mocking Americans she has encountered with a

poorly performed accent that could have been placed somewhere in the deepest parts of the

Southern United States. She frequently quips “oh, the fecking Americans and their ‘doos yaw

know the Mac Donna-Gheeses? They’re my family from Ireland or Scotland”. In the story she

would retort with some snarky comment to the effect of “Oh yeah… a whole fecking country of

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10 million of us so of course I know your family... too bad you can’t even pronounce the name

right or know that WE’RE NOT SCOTTISH.”

In his book “Highland Homecomings” Paul Basu (2007) asserts that no other nation has

so many diasporas, real or imagined, as the British Isles. He explores this concept of heritage

tourism and the way outsiders feel this imaginary connection with the British Isles. Following a

group from Canada and another from the United States as they try to trace, but ultimately have to

construct a sanguine line with Ireland and Scotland, Basu explains how the myth of the Irish Celt

or Scots Clansman has inspired generations of outsiders to feel a since of kinship, no matter how

tangential, with imagined ancestors from Ireland. It is this connection that makes Ireland an

attractive destination for heritage tourism and retirement immigration. This leads Bourdain to

argue that Ireland belongs to all of us and we all have an interest in the fight for Ireland’s

successful future.

If Ireland is comparable to the mythic Celtic island of Avalon as Bourdain, Basu, and

others romantically espouse, then its pubs and cafés (the latter is where I will focus my

dissertation research) are the fertile social ground where this mythic ideal springs forth and takes

root. As Oldenburg (1989) asserts these “Third Places” (I will further explain his definition for

Third Place shortly) are the lifeblood of their communities. One study found that people in the

British Isles spend more time in public houses than they do in any other buildings except private

homes and work places. These pubs and cafes “held more people and took more of their time and

money than churches, dancehalls, and political organizations put together” (Oldenburg 1989,

124).

Oldenburg coined the concept of the third place in his study on the spaces of leisure and

social connection in our lives. Set in the backdrop of disappearing public space and shift from

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urban to suburban areas Oldenburg is concerned where people go to connect. In his argument he

establishes three places where people spend a majority of their time. The first place is work. This

is where we are the most professional. As Goffman (1959) would term it, this is front stage. This

is where we are the most professional and conscious of our actions and appearance. It is in this

first place that we conduct business, leisure and social interactions are typically limited to

professional networking and office banter. The second place is home. This is where we are

comfortable to be ourselves and get the closest to offstage as possible. Our homes are where we

are the most casual and leisurely. Then there is the third place which bridges the first and second

places. “The casual environment, finally, is the natural habitat of the third place. Third place

settings are really no more than physical manifestations of people’s desire to associate with those

in an area once they get to know them” (Oldenburg 1989, 290). They offer both privacy and

sociability to individuals and groups. “The cafe is not a place a man goes to for a drink but a

place he goes to in order to drink in company, where he can establish relationships of familiarity

based on the suspension of the censorships, conventions and proprieties that prevail among

strangers (Bourdieu 1984, 183). Joseph Wechsberg is unconditional in his summary of the

bistro’s structural essence when he remarks that third places cannot possibly be mistaken for

anything else; that they represent more an emotional than an architectural edifice; and they

consist of two-thirds atmosphere and one-third matter (As quoted in Oldenburg 1989, 149). It is

in this third place where my research will focus. It includes cafes, bars, restaurants, bistros,

coffeehouses and pubs.

Although pubs and coffeehouses fall under the same third space classification, they are

very different in their place in the community and how people interact in the space. Third places

create their identity from the beverages they serve. The coffeehouse or bistro space “encourages

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visits of longer duration than the pub and is even more of an available institution” (Oldenburg

1989, 183). Meanwhile, pubs are places of imbibement and blurring lines between stupor and

sobriety. Whereas “Coffee spurs the intellect; alcohol the emotions and soma. Those drinking

coffee are content listening contemplatively to music, while those drinking alcohol are inclined

to make music of their own.” (Oldenburg 1989, 145). “In the era of its reign, which some set at

two hundred years, or from 1650 to 1850, the coffeehouse was often referred to as the Penny

University. Many customers kept regular hours in order that friends and clients would find it

easy to contact them” (Oldenburg 1989, 185). These spaces were democratic in nature and

almost any male was allowed to enter provided he could follow the rules and purchase a dish of

coffee. A set of rules were placed in the coffeehouse, with the primary imperative that all men

were to be equal under its roof. Prohibitions were set against card and dice games to keep noise,

arguments, and displays of wealth in check. These were spaces where insurance, banking,

government officials, and journalists gathered and launched their enterprises that lasted for

centuries. They were also spaces where common men could come and listen to a professor read

books and newspapers aloud or debate politics with fellow men in a sober state.

While the social space created by coffeehouses has remained relatively unchanged, the

coffee itself and the people preparing coffee would be unrecognizable to those early coffeehouse

customers. Far from the cauldrons of coffee boiled by the gallon a week at a time and reheated

on request, coffee is now an artisanal product served by people who represent themselves as

craftspeople. They are professionals in their field making a viable living. To gain some social

capital and help my entrée into Irish coffeehouses I decided to go through the training program

and become a certified barista. This certification cost almost €1,000 and I spent eight hours a day

for six days in classes. It was followed up with a written exam. That was just for the intermediate

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certification. In 2019 I am planning to advance to the master certification which will cost another

€900 and require another 6 days of classes. While the efficacy of such a course is debatable to

the public, the industry demands it. Charlie, a barista from Intellegensia in Chicago featured in

the 2015 documentary Barista argues that that much training is necessary because of coffee’s

volatility. “You’re working with something that is more chemically complex than almost

anything else we imbibe as a human being. By far and away. Wine through the fermentation

process, nothing compared to the roasting process and caramelization that takes place there”

Ryan, a barista from a small shop in California adds “I think that coffee is one of the most

wonderful things on the planet. It is endlessly fascinating. It is also extremely difficult. So

difficult that chefs won’t even touch it” (3:39). The documentary later goes on to define the

typical barista:

“On the forefront of this movement are the baristas who are leading the charge to

perfection. You might think you know the type, quirky, off the wall, brilliantly manicured

facial hair and an unapologetic sense of style, bodies adorned with tattoos and a shared

love of dance. Make no mistake, this is what a craftsperson looks like. These are the boys

and girls that take coffee to that next step. They care about things like you being able to

taste baker’s chocolate or fresh citrus in your cup. Making sure the immaculately filtered

water they use is heated with razor precision so as not to scald every square inch of your

pretty mouth as you take that first sip and nowhere is this push for perfection more

personified than at a barista competition where the best baristas on the planet square off

in an attempt to make the greatest cups of coffee anyone has ever tasted. That’s right,

you heard me, a barista competition.” (15:38)

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A large part the above description focuses on the barista’s aesthetic. Having professional

presentation is incredibly important to certified baristas. The practical aspects of my training

were frequently interspersed with instruction focused on how to “look like a barista”. We were

shown how to hold the milk jug in a professional manner that looks impressive, how to hand the

finished beverage to the customer in a particular way, and the clothes that customers expect to

see on a quality barista. This falls in line with the argument that expertise is something people do

rather than something people have or hold (Summerson Carr 2010, Collins & Evans 2002).

The film spends quite some time discussing the level of training required to become a

barista and the low pay that many receive serving coffee while ascending the certification ranks.

The film reports that someone who serves coffee will earn on average around $16,000 per year,

while a certified, award-winning barista can make closer to $90,000 (23:18). Some celebrity

baristas can command even more by taking on endorsements and opening their own

coffeehouses and coffee roasters. While the low entry pay may not seem attractive to natural

born citizens, it can be a lucrative position for immigrants who initially lack the language skills

necessary to secure higher prestige professional positions.

It is quite fitting that the first person to open a coffeehouse in the British Isles was an

immigrant from Greece. This follows a long pattern of immigrants using food and service

positions to help facilitate an income and entrée into the community. These third places then

become spaces of identity negotiation. They are places where immigrants can indulge in

nostalgic acts which both acknowledge their heritage, but also form a new identity that

incorporates their new surroundings. As Eriksen (2007) discusses this “mixing” creates a blend

of the old and new into a separate unique identity. Mankekar (2002) uses an Indian grocery store

in the Silicon Valley region of California to ethnographically examine how this mixing occurs.

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She found that ethnographies of local communities, identities, and spaces, necessarily involve an

interrogation of how the “local” is produced at the intersection of translocal, regional, and global

cultural fields (198). These Indian stores blend food and hygiene products from both northern

and southern India while incorporating American items to create an approximation of an

“Indian” culture that does not exist in India. It is in this space that immigrants forge a new

identity. Shoppers must decide how much either mixing or reembedding (entrenching in

nostalgic reproduction of your home culture) they are going to accept in this new space. In the

context of Ireland coffeehouses, the Polish immigrants must decide if they are going to accept

the café service standards expected in Ireland and lose the markers of their Polish identity or

reembed in that Eastern European identity. During a conversation with a manager at one of the

coffeehouses, who is an intra-European immigrant, she groused about how Polish people do not

understand customer service and that Ireland is so focused on customer service she had a hard

time acculturating. In the end she decided that she would have to adopt an “Irish persona” in

order to be successful in Dublin. Another barista who is from Poland chimed in that Pols who do

not try to fit into the Irish culture of small talk and convivial customer service end up cleaning

toilets. Many of the top baristas in Ireland are born abroad. This offers a place of relative

financial success and a craft in which they feel pride. However, Bonnie Honig cautions that the

myth of immigrant success reveals the intimate relationship between xenophilea and xenophobia

(Mankekar 2002, 200).

One immigrant who has made a very successful living in coffee is Sasa Sestic. The Coffee

Man (2016) is a feature length documentary that follows Sestic, who is a Bosnian refugee living

in Australia, as he prepares for the World Barista Competition. Sestic and his family moved to

Canberra in 1996 not knowing any English and having never tried coffee. However, after several

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years trying to find a profession Sestic ended up purchasing a Hansel & Gretel Coffee and

Chocolate shop franchise. He knew that his accent and mannerisms would give him away as non-

native, but he found that working in the food service industry most customers did not

acknowledge his foreignness. Sestic eventually opened several more shops and is now buying a

coffee farm in Colombia. While this film is riddled with a white man’s burden style of

description that falls outside the prevue of this paper, the important aspect to focus on is the role

that coffee played in creating economic opportunity for an immigrant to a Commonwealth

Nation. Sestic proclaims that he did not like the coffee provided by the parent company but

admits he had no idea how to make the various espresso beverages they offered and were trying

to just make money. However, after attending a cupping held by a specialty roaster in nearby

Melbourne, Sestic decided to switch from commodity grade franchise provided coffee to

specialty coffee.

In both the Barista documentary and The Coffee Man, Sestic and the other baristas spend

a good portion of the films focusing on educating the audience and members of the coffee

community on what constitutes good coffee. They have a mocking town toward people who

serve and consume commodity grade coffee and establish themselves as the experts in the field.

This democratic beverage is divided into various classes of those who know and appreciate

quality and those who are willing to accept mediocracy (Barista 43:22).

While specialty coffee traces its origins to Berkeley, California in the 1960’s, it was not

until the late 1980’s that the concept of specialty coffee started to creep into mainstream America

(Roseberry 1996). In his landmark article “The Rise of Yuppie Coffees and the Reimagination of

Class in the United States” William Roseberry explores America’s transitioning relationship with

coffee from commodity to a beverage fit for a connoisseur. He evokes Mintz’s Sweetness and

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Power (1985) as a framework for understanding how “a single commodity at a particular

moment even a mundane commodity produced for everyday and routine consumption shed some

light on a wider range of social and cultural shifts” (Roseberry 2006: 763). These shifts were

encouraged by myriad social, political, and economic issues. Two of the strongest were the

economic collapse of the 1970’s which helped erode the Fordist regime and pushed into “flexible

accumulation”. David Harvey’s description of the innovations characteristic of flexible

accumulation “concentrates on specialized market niches and the production of goods for those

niches as opposed to the emphasis on mass-market standardized products; the downsizing of

plants and production processes; the shrinking of inventories so that producers purchase smaller

quantities and practice just-in-time production” (Roseberry 1996: 768). It could be seen to

represent an attempt to recreate, ironically through consumption, a time before industrialization

and mass consumption. It could be seen, then, as a symbolic inversion of the very economic and

political forces through which this particular class segment came into existence. Roseberry

further discusses how specialty coffee specifically breaks from the industrial system and

establishes itself outside of the corporate market by playing up its hand roasted, small batch, and

direct trade qualities. The acceptance of specialty coffee into the mainstream market “marks a

distinct break with a past characterized by mass production and consumption. The move toward

these coffees was not initiated by the giants that dominate the coffee trade but by small regional

roasters who developed new sources of supply…New coffees, more choices, more diversity, less

concentration, new capitalism: the beverage of postmodernism” (Roseberry 1996: 763).

Ironically, the second major influence is what Eriksen terms acceleration brought about

by developments in the industrialized world. Eriksen argues that technological and mechanical

developments like jet engines and the internet are accelerating global connections allowing

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people to communicate and trade with fewer barriers. While the first development engages per-

industrial nostalgia, the second relies on accelerated development to thrive. Being able to

communicate with farmers and ship coffee literally across the world in a matter of days is crucial

to the fair and direct trade movements. This interconnectedness also creates dependency. In 1977

Brazil suffered through a massive freeze that killed a majority of its coffee yield. The same year

floods damaged coffee crops on the western part of the South American continent sending global

prices soaring. This placed commodity coffee prices within reach of specialty coffee which

encouraged people to sample the higher-grade beans. The disasters also put focus on the coffee

consuming community’s responsibility to financially support the farmers in the coffee belt. One

of the ideals of specialty coffee is having an understanding of where your coffee comes from and

who is growing it. As James McCormack of the World Coffee and Tea federation put it “If

you're selling Colombian coffee, you should have some idea about where Colombia is located

and what kinds of coffee it produces" (Roseberry 1996, 763).

One major takeaway from Roseberry’s article is that coffee is a segmented beverage.

Much of the article explores how members of varying demographics purchase and consume

coffee differently. From the older customers who are on a budget and prefer cheaper coffee to

the middle-class yuppies with disposable income who are willing to spend a larger percentage of

their income on higher quality specialty coffee. These segments or clusters can be understood as

what Bourdieu would call distinctions (1985). In his landmark work Distinction, French

sociologist Pierre Bourdieu explores the influence of institutions and structures on social and

cultural patterns. Bourdieu defines his use of the word ‘distinction’ simply as groups of

individuals in a social space that each develop cultural idiosyncrasies which differentiate them

from other group clusters. Bourdieu’s central argument has to do with the concept of ‘Habitus’.

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This, in essence, has to do with how we make choices to act in certain ways and not others, as we

go about the business of living our own lives. This transforms into the amount of capital we

have. It could be social, economic, or cultural. He defines economic capital as purely monetary.

People with higher rates of economic capital possess a higher amount of material wealth and

buying power than the majority of society. Cultural capital is connected to knowledge, and takes

three forms: Embodied knowledge (knowledge that is a part of you), objectified form (things

people use to furnish their living environment) and institutionalized form (titles, diplomas).

These are people who may not have large bank accounts, but they not only understand but also

dictate the tastes of society. The third form of capital is social capital. People with high rates of

social capital can mobilize resources by knowing other people who have the right connections.

People with high rates of social capital may not have a lot of economic or cultural capital, but

they are connected with and able to influence those who do. The three forms of capital can be

interchanged depending on the space and others in the cluster. For example one person may have

relatively large amounts of economic capital in a small town like Gainesville, Florida, but low

economic capital in a city like New York. The same concept is applicable to both cultural and

economic capital.

All three of these forms of capital are transformed into symbolic capital which is

transmutable when an individual transverses into different fields. This dense and very through

exploration of French society uses statistical modeling and qualitative data to explore the

confluence between class (economic and social) on taste. Taste is not limited to food or art in

Bourdieu’s study, but he uses the term in a much broader sense, exploring the banality of

everyday life as a performance of taste. Bourdieu, like Goffman (1959), focuses on social status

and mobility through performance and actions of the individual. While Goffman looks at the

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influence of the structure and space in dictating individuals’ actions, Bourdieu fixes his gaze

more on how these social structures are replicated on the individual level through the actions and

intentions of singular people rather than a faceless blackboxed structure controlling the actions of

entire groups of people. He does not deny that individuals feel themselves to be and act as

though they were members of institutions, nor that some social groupings share a common

lifestyle.

Bourdieu proposes that those with a high volume of cultural capital or non-financial

social resources, such as education, which promote social mobility beyond economic means are

most likely to be able to determine what constitutes taste within society. In specialty coffee it is

baristas who fit the niche of having that specialized education and massive amounts of cultural

capital who are able to dictate the coffee tastes to the rest of the society. Publishing books like

the Coffee Dictionary (Colonna-Dashwood 2017), Where to Drink Coffee (Clayton & Ross

2018), and “Independent Coffee Guide (Salt Media 2018)” Purveyors of specialty coffee are

dictating not only the qualities of “good” coffee, but also where it is acceptable to purchase this

coffee.

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IN the above figure (Bourdieu 1985, 186) shows those with higher cultural and economic

capital prefer foods that are lighter and either delectate (cultural) or refined (economic). Those

with lower cultural and economic capital prefer fattier, heavier, nourishing foods. This is in line

with the language and positioning of coffee roasting. Commodity coffee is typically described as

“heavy”, “burned”, and “oily” whereas specialty coffee has tasting notes of lightly sweet fruits

like blueberries and crisp apples. This also extends to the upper class’ preference for quality over

quantity. The “working class” which are more likely to visit a commodity coffeehouse like

Starbucks, expect larger portions (compare a true macchiato versus one from Starbucks) and free

refills on drip coffee for less than $3. This is in contrast to the more expensive specialty shops

which can charge from $4 per cup of filter coffee to as much as $20 or even $50 per cup.

If we examine the cultural capital and distinctive cluster of barista and specialty coffee in

context with the resistance theme in Roseberry’s article we see a thread of conflict to what was

seen as the cultural norm of industrialized corporate commodity coffee to small batch, hand

LeClere 20

roasted, direct sourced artesian coffee that circumvents transnational industrial food

corporations. While many specialty coffee baristas identify themselves as “hipster” I argue that

that is just a rebranded form of contemporary punk culture. Both subcultures are generally

aspiring to live a way of life that promotes egalitarianism, reproductive rights, are sensitive to

environmental concerns, and oppose sexism, racism, homophobia, and corporate domination.

Arguing that you are what you eat, punks are concerned by the effect of industrial food on the

body. Punks believe mass produced industrial chain foods, like Starbucks, “fills a person’s body

with the norms, rationale, and moral pollution of corporate-capitalism and imperialism” (Clark

2004, 2). Using Clark’s punk culinary triangle (2004) which places raw foods as the most pure, I

argue that those with high degrees of cultural capital in specialty coffee seek out roasts that are

both morally and physically raw. They see the over roasting of coffee by transnational

corporations as a reification of the way these companies do business. The “burned” coffee sold

by commodity roasters like General Mills, Nestle, and Starbucks, is morally tainted by

colonialism, destruction growing and harvesting large swaths of coffee causes on the natural

environment, and the yoke of World Bank debts on farmers and governments in developing

nations.

The specialty coffee industry favor lighter roasts which they see as not only honoring the

farmer and roaster’s craftsmanship, but claim you can only light roast in small batches, so it falls

in with their value to circumvent the industrial system. This illustrates their focus on labels like

Fair Trade and Organic as a way to father circumvent the agro-industrial complex. These labels

mean something to this cluster and they actively seek out the cultural capital they can receive

from consumption. This translates to consumers who identify with this politicizing of coffee as

they are willing to purchase their coffee from asylum seeking migrants and many of the shops.

LeClere 21

As Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream fame succinctly stated “Coffee remains a very

political commodity" (Roseberry 1996, 774).

While many of the ideas in this bibliography are still being developed, the two themes I

plan to explore in my dissertation are present. First, that Ireland is a paradox. It is a nation that is

struggling to find its place in the world stage after years of economic and political hardship. The

small island nation osculates between acceptance of this new role and responsibility as world

leader and its dark past of not even being able to feed its own people. And in Ireland, as the rest

of the world, coffee is a transnational beverage that encourages migration, either forced

migration in the form of plantation workers or pull migration as with the economic opportunities

for baristas in specialty coffee. The other theme is that coffee is a political beverage that creates

distinct categories of people who use their cultural capital to transform the industrial food system

from selling physically and politically cooked coffee to morally raw roasts. The arguments over

coffee illustrate the tension between those who work within the preexisting system and those

who are on a moral crusade trying to circumvent those systems.

LeClere 22

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LeClere 23

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