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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