Project Proposal

by smileselam

As an Ethiopian coffee has been a rich part of my life and my culture. I remember our Sunday afternoon ritual growing up: church, eat lunch, roast coffee, and drink it for the rest of the afternoon. I also remember the countless number of cafes on the street. Some were constructed to be cafes and others were people’s living rooms turned into a convenient place for macchiato. Even now if you were to visit the streets of Addis, capital of Ethiopia, you can see at least 3 cafes one block. Unlike the reasons we drink coffee on college campuses, most Habeshas drink coffee for the social value and the social space it creates. As immigrants in America however some of the values and traditions around coffee are bound to change. As a starter I want to ask Habeshas (colloquial name that refers to both Ethiopians and Eritreans) how their relationship with coffee has changed from when they were back home to now; have their reasons for drinking coffee changed over time; do cafes still provide the same social space as they used to; and how have these spaces been affected in times of prosperity and misfortune. If possible I want to try to understand the immigrant experience of Habeshas through the scope of coffee. I can easily find my subjects at cafes and Ethiopian/Eritrean restaurants. One thing I’ll need to decide immediately is whether this will be about both Eritreans and Ethiopians in general or specifically Ethiopians. To be politically correct and avoid tension and over generalization I will more than likely stay with Ethiopians, though finding out who is Ethiopian will also be awkward. I will probably start the project with filming the conversations and depending on how well their ideas are communicated I will decide on keeping it as a video or transcribing it.

Another small idea I have which I am more curious about after a lecture on disaster capitalism and revisiting Katrina and the Haiti disasters is how students and professors keep moving forward with faith and hope. I personally find myself hitting rock bottom sometimes after such intense lectures on suffering and I wonder how my peers and professors keep striving for a better future and hoping that change will come. Essentially, what are their sources of empowerment and hope when the space of academia can sometimes feel very static and full of cynicism.

Those are my two ideas; hopefully I can sift through them and figure out which one is best of this class. Your feedbacks and critiques are very welcome!