Locally Roasted Coffees, Globally
Oriented Classes
A comparative ethnography of the new middle
classes in Tehran, Glasgow, and Amsterdam
Reza Shaker Ardekani
Graduate student in Research Master’s Urban Studies, University of Amsterdam (UvA), Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Graduate School of Social Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Achtergracht 166, 1018 WV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
reza.shakerardekani@student.uva.nl
Jan Rath
Professor of Urban Sociology at the Department of Sociology of the University of Amsterdam (UvA), Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Graduate School of Social Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Achtergracht 166, 1018 WV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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Locally Roasted Coffees, Globally Oriented Classes: a comparative ethnography
of the new middle classes in Tehran, Glasgow, and Amsterdam
Abstract
Despite the diversity of consumption and lifestyle practices of the new middle classes within and between societies, they share some similar qualities. Revolving around regulars of specialty coffee bars in Tehran, Glasgow, and Amsterdam, the study explores common characteristics of the new middle classes. Noticeably more globally oriented than other members of society, specialty coffee consumers through their everyday consumption preferences tend to share a set of ethical dispositions and cultural practices amongst which this paper focuses only on metropolitan body, cosmopolitan omnivorism, and environmental responsibility. The study also attempts to propose some rationalities for the emergence of the new global middle classes and poses some questions for further investigations.
Key words:
the new middle classes, metropolitan body, cosmopolitan omnivorism, environmental responsibility, the new global middle classes
1. Introduction
Cities are predominantly revolving around consumption and urbanism as the practical knowledge of urban living manifests itself through consumption skills. Although still sites of manufacturing and production, cities are now increasingly built around their utility as places for service and consumption (Jayne, 2006; Latham, 2003; Clarke et al., 2003). Cities are transforming from working-class-dominated spaces of industrial production to middle-class-dominated spaces of services and are being reorganised as spectacular theatres of consumption (Hannigan, 1998; Gottdeiner, 1997; Zukin, 1991, 1995; Glennio & Thrift, 1992; Zukin & Maguire, 2004; Boterman, 2012; Karsten et al., 2015; Hutton, 2009). This transformation is reflected on the growth of the new middle classes and the emergence of a new form of public urban culture.
As a reciprocal relationship between the demand- and supply-side, the rise of the new middle classes seems to be in parallel with the rising consumption and changing urban landscapes. It is characterised by a considerable increase in new consumption spaces as well as consumption practices and aspirations for lifestyles, strengthening, and reinvigorating social and class identity through a conspicuous consumer culture which is visible in the emergence of the polymorphous public culture organised around the consumption of a range
2 of goods and services such as artisanal beer, cocktail, tea, ice cream, bread, and coffee (Mathur, 2010; Brown, 2014; Trigg, 2001).
There is, moreover, a growing body of literature focusing on the consumption practices and identities of the new middle classes linking them to subjects such as residential and commercial gentrification (Atkinson & Bridge, 2005; Lees & Wyly, 2010; Zukin, 2010; Zukin & Kosta, 2004; Zukin et al., 2015; Bridge & Dowling, 2001; Blasius et al., 2016), the expansion of the creative class and the cognitive-cultural economy (Scott, 2012; Florida, 2002), new (sub)cultures and lifestyles and the proliferation of urban public life (Wynne, 2002; Bennett et al., 2009; Jensen, 2006), climate change and ecological awareness (Lange & Meier, 2009; Anantharaman, 2014), and the political construct and the establishment of democracy (Fernandes & Heller, 2006; Bhatt et al., 2010; Brandi & Büge, 2014). In addition, a substantial amount of case studies has been conducted to shed some light on various aspects of the new middle classes at different urban and national scales of analysis. For instance, and just to name a few, there are contextual studies on the new middle classes in Amsterdam (Gelmers & Rath, 2015), Glasgow (Shaker Ardekani & Rath, 2016), Tehran (Shaker Ardekani, 2016a), Hong Kong (Kharas & Gertz, 2010), Cape Town (McEwan et al., 2015), the Heath (Wynne, 2002), Morocco (Cohen, 2004), South Korea (Koo, 2016), India (Mathur, 2010; Anantharaman, 2014), the UK (Bennett et al., 2009; Le Roux et al., 2008), Ecuador (Pribilsky, 2009), and Israel (Katz-Gerro, 2009).
Although the existing literature does provide valuable information about the local particularities and contextual situations of the new urban middle classes, there is little comparative research along this line of work. Despite their diversity in terms of class composition, system, and lifestyle practices within and between societies, what kinds of qualities and characteristics do they share visible through consumption performances? The current study tries to provide some answers to this question.
Through focusing on specialty coffee bars as a proxy and an example of a highly attractive urban space for the new middle classes and a social space of lifestyles, which some attentions have been paid to it (Woldoff et al. 2013; Gelmers & Rath, 2015; Manzo, 2010; 2014; 2015; Bookman, 2013a; 2013b; 2014; Martins, 2015; Chadios, 2005; Shiau, 2016; Fazeli, 2011; Shaker Ardekani, 2016b; Waxman, 2006; Gavin, 2013), this paper attempts to shed a distinct light on the common characteristics of patrons of these urban spaces and their consumption practices in a cross-national investigation. For doing so, three cases with different engagement in the global currents of economy and culture in both the Global South and North have been
3 selected: Tehran, Glasgow, and Amsterdam. The selected cities, moreover, differ in terms of their class systems. For instance, while the economic background and the class of origin hierarchically differentiate social groups within Tehran, the class composition in Glasgow and Amsterdam with some slight variations, derives mostly from occupation, education, and cultural competences. In this light, because the class systems to which specialty coffee consumers belong not similar within the selected cases, the study has provided a rare and unique opportunity for finding their common grounds. In this sense, through an ethnographic investigation, the study suggests that, despite diversity and blurring class boundaries amongst the participants, there are similarities in their lifestyles and everyday consumption patterns as attempts to draw distinctions between ‘traditional’ and ‘new’ definition of middle classes.
Overall, though a small-N ethnography of regulars of specialty coffee bars in Tehran, Glasgow, and Amsterdam, the research contributes to the understudied literature on the new global middle classes. By assimilating social particularities and local specificities into general patterns, analysing class practices and consumption patterns of participants within each city, and juxtaposing the characteristics, their similar features have been identified. This line of work also provides an exciting opportunity to explain that through sharing similar characteristics, dispositions, and practices across societies and countries, participants are shaping the new global middle classes. With this in mind, in the following after a brief literature review, methodology and findings of the research will be presented. A brief discussion on the new global middle classes will be followed as well. At the end, some avenues for further investigations will be also opened up.
2. The aesthetic practices of the new middle classes
The new middle classes as a social classification is rather heterogeneous, an ambiguous, elusive category of people who is neither too rich nor too poor, broadly reflecting the ability to lead a comfortable life. They usually enjoy stable housing, healthcare, educational opportunities, occupations that require significant levels of human capital, and discretionary disposable income to spend on vacation and leisure pursuits (Mathur, 2010; Kharas & Gertz, 2010). The term, however, is more than just an income group; it is a multifaceted concept can be seen through sociological, political, environmental, and economic optics, and operates as much as a cultural construct which combines both tradition and modernity in its ideologies and lifestyles (Anantharaman, 2014; Bhatt et al., 2010).
4 The new middle classes are not ‘new’ according to their social composition since they are part of the broader middle classes. Their newness is considered primarily by their professional class, based on knowledge rather than property, which is highly related to post-industrial societies and post-fordist production-logics, as well as their new consumption practices through which they constantly redefine the middle class identities that are increasingly celebrated for having liberal attitudes and associated with resource-intensive lifestyles. This class, accordingly, can be grasped as a class-in-practice, defined by its everyday, mundane consumption practices through which it reproduces its privileged social position (Gripsrud et al., 2011; Bourdieu, 1977; Fernandes & Heller, 2006; Lange & Meier, 2009; Kuhn, 2009; Veblen, 2007 [1899]; Burris, 1986; Warde et al., 1999; Michalski, 2015). The new middle classes seem to subjectively and objectively define and demarcate their sense of class. For instance, besides expression and public performance, they represent a desire for self-preservation and demand for quality of life through looking after themselves, i.e. body, and environment, e.g. neighbourhood and city where they live within. In addition, their passion for self-aggrandisement and educational background assist them to subjectively differentiate themselves from old, traditional middle classes through their engagement with political debates as well as broad, eclectic tastes in cultural item, and consumption practices.
Consumption, however, is seen as being less and less functional for the new middle classes and is employed as a communicator and a sign of distinction through the pluralistic processes of self-actualisation (Jayne, 2006; Bourdieu, 1984; Giddens, 1991; Glennio & Thrift, 1992). Issues of identity, lifestyle, and consumption, moreover, converge in the growth of aesthetic reflexivity, which has had important effects on the proliferation of artisanal goods and the aestheticisation of everyday life. Put simply, within the contemporary consumer culture, lifestyle connotes individuality, self-expression, and a stylistic self-consciousness, and one’s body, clothes, speech, leisure pastimes, eating and drinking preferences, home, car, choice of holidays, choice of outlets, environmental concerns, political orientation, etc. are to be regarded as indicators of the individuality of taste and sense of style (Featherstone, 2007; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992; Appadurai, 1996; Latham, 2003; Zukin & Maguire, 2004).
The new middle classes with high cultural and economic resources reject the mass produced, standardised, and impersonal commodities; they embrace goods and services that are designed to cater to their personal sense of worth as an invisible ink strategy to objectively and subjectively demarcate their blurred class boundaries and to practice the symbolic, embodied, and experiential aspects of their class identities (Escalas, 2013; Guthman, 2003;
5 Arnould & Thompson, 2005; McCracken, 1988; Corrigan, 1997; Bourdieu, 1989). They increasingly look towards emotional and intimate commodities which are visible in the recent proliferation of aesthetic and experience economy, in the growth of personal fitness and beauty products, in the expansion of the tourist trade and travelling agencies, in the exponential rise of the catering and hospitality industries, in the growth in the home-improvement sector, in the personalisation of pharmaceuticals, in the move to quality in gourmet food and beverages, and in the development of other increasingly niche markets for personal goods and creative services (Michalski, 2015; Warde & Martens, 2000; Elliott, 2004; Townsend & Sood, 2012).
Socially constructed and socially maintained, identities of the new middle classes are managed through the processes of public performance via placing a great emphasis on frequent visits to social spaces of lifestyles such as craft beer bars, specialty coffee bars, wine bars, fusion restaurants, artisanal bakeries, organic salad mix bars, bookshops, music venues, art galleries, boutiques, vintage shops, hair, nail, and beauty salons, ethnic caterings, ethnic therapies, and design and tailor shops (Gammon & Elkington, 2015; Shaker Ardekani & Rath, 2016; Guthman, 2003). Highly visible signs of gentrification, these consumption spaces not only supply the material needs of the new middle classes, but also the aesthetics of their offerings and atmosphere provide cultural capital for these groups, validate the judgment of their tastes and lifestyles, and reinforce a sense of authentic self-expression and creative cultural distinction (Gilmore & Pine, 2007; Zukin et al., 2009; 2015; Zukin & Kosta, 2004; Zukin, 1991; 1995; 1998; 2008; 2010; Zukin & Maguire, 2004).
However, despite the existing rich literature and current thick description of the new middle classes, their consumption practices, taste, habits, identities, styles of urban living, ideologies, states of mind, attitudes, and sentiments, there are few comparative studies of these urban groups. What are common grounds amongst the new middle classes between societies and countries? This study, tries to provide some answers to these questions through investigating visitors of specialty coffee bars in Tehran, Glasgow, and Amsterdam. In fact, these new urban consumption spaces through focusing on artisanship and expertise and sensual experience are highly attractive for the new middle classes who prefer natural, whole, quality, and fresh foods and beverages (Roseberry, 1996; Shiau, 2016; Chadios, 2005; Bookman, 2013a; 2013b; 2014).
The consumption of relatively expensive specialty coffees, moreover, is understood to contain numerous social, cultural, and symbolic meanings which everyday needs and
6 consumption are linked to identities and lifestyles of the new middle classes who seek symbolic distinction to differentiate themselves from the dullness of mass culture by consuming aesthetic products. In other words, sipping coffee is not only about drinking coffee but also about navigating through countless tastes, flavours, and smells of coffee, selecting a specific coffee bean coming from a specific country and farmland, derived from a distinct process of planting, harvesting, washing, drying, milling, roasting, and grinding, brewed by skilled, professional baristas by certain types of machines and equipments, enriched by adding a specific type and amount of sugar, syrup, and milk in a particular space within a particular neighbourhood associated with a specific interior design and leisurely ambiance. In other words, where to go and what to drink have become the key indicators of class.
3. Data and methodology
What is assumed within the reviewed literature is that links are present between the aesthetic consumption and lifestyle patterns of the new middle classes and their high human capital derived from their educational background, occupational class, cultural features, and mentalities. However, the literature has little to say about their shared traits and characteristics in spite of different combinations of and interplays between their cultural and economic capital across different societies. In this respect, via focusing on a cross-case analysis, the research investigates the consumption practices and characteristics of the new middle classes. Shaping a diverse case selection, three cities in both the Global South and North have been selected: Tehran, Glasgow, and Amsterdam. These cities with very different class composition as well as social, cultural, economic, and urban settings enhance the representativeness of the larger population and increase the external validity of the study. Moreover, as the population is heterogeneous rather than homogeneous and the depth of the investigation exceeds its breadth, the research seems to be suitable for hypothesis generating and providing rationalities explaining found shared qualities and the growth of the new global middle classes.
Using qualitative ethnographic research methods in Small-N cross-national study (Jørgensen, 2015), the investigation analyses regulars of specialty coffee bars within and between the selected cities. This within-case comparison is of central importance and contributes to the depth of the research and guides the study to identify common patterns of regulars, their characteristics, motivations, and social practices. Furthermore, unlike ethnographies in one setting, cross-national ethnography provides an exciting opportunity to
7 directly compare findings and reflect upon the structural, underlying factors that explain similarities in relation to the new middle classes, shared qualities, and their class practices in different countries.
The paper draws upon a research conducted between July 2015 and March 2016 on specialty coffee consumption in Tehran, Glasgow, and Amsterdam. As signs of gentrification (Zukin, 2010), the selection of field sites has been intended based upon the location of coffeehouses within gentrified/ing neighbourhoods and/or areas where the upper-middle classes live. Four coffeehouses within each city, in total, 12 specialty coffee bars, have been selected for the investigation based on their urban locations. The methodology, furthermore, involves unobtrusive observations in conjunction with ethnographic interviews through personal interactions to examine the attitudes, characteristics, and consumption practices of regulars of specialty coffee bars. Both the narrative accounts of respondents and direct observations of their class practices have been employed. In total, the qualitative data consists of 240 hours of observations and 60 semi-structured in-depth interviews.
Lasted between 60 and 180 minutes, observations have been made on both weekdays and weekends and at different times of the day as a source of observing variations based on customers and social practices. Moreover, between 15 and 180 minutes, interviews have been conducted with both baristas and visitors at the selected specialty coffee bars. Purposive sampling was implemented to provide a sample with varied composition by recruiting participants from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds based on age (between 17 and 64 years old), gender, ethnicity, and social activities they are engaging in within the coffeehouses. In addition, first-timers and passer-by visitors have been excluded from the study. Out of 60 interviews, 12 were conducted with baristas and 48 with regular patrons. The questions were mostly open-ended and in a semi-structured fashion. Participants were asked about their socioeconomic backgrounds as well as consumption and cultural practices to explore the ways in which they understand, rationalise, and respond to their everyday urban living. They were asked about their socio-economic backgrounds, their choice of coffeehouse and coffee connoisseurship. Furthermore, in order to examine their taste, habit, and human capital, interviewees were simply asked a set of cultural questions around their tastes on music, news, books, hobbies, travelling, sports, eating-out patterns, and other cultural activities.
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4. The shared characteristics of coffee people in Tehran, Glasgow, and Amsterdam
The new middle classes, as an extraordinarily complex group with unclear boundaries within societies, employ myriad forms of competing cultural capital, mainly through aesthetic consumption in order to hierarchically differentiate themselves from other social classes. In this light, the consumption of specialty coffees within relaxed, conspicuous environments has become a key component of their expressive class identities bound up with the performance of cultural capital and processes of distinction. For instance, Rosa, 29, a social worker in Amsterdam explains the self-reflexivity of patrons of coffee bars:
“I think there is also a kind of culture to go to such a scene like this to kind of not showing off but kind of to say hello, here I am... I guess because people want to be part of a community or group to tell that hey, watch me, I’m successful; I have that iPhone, that MacBook, or clothes... I think it’s a subculture very similar to cocktails... It is interesting, which shows you have a lot of time and money and know about coffee. I also think a part of people is here to show themselves. That’s maybe a reason why I don’t like it here that much because it is a little bit too much hip for me...”
It seems that specialty coffee bars can be considered as a space of representation or a space of practice within which particular representations of identity, power, and hierarchy have become visible. These urban spaces cater for a ‘certain crowd’ as Maryam, 24, an architect in Tehran argues:
“We are going towards specialised, professional products... for example, this place with fresh, quality, homemade sweets, sandwiches, and salads, which is its pride, serves mostly for a certain type of people... as far as I know about this place and its managers, they are all professional in their jobs; they are highly selective and restrictive about their baristas, staff, coffee beans, and equipments... It is not a small, little sinking coffee shop, they play good music, and the crowd is a certain crowd... I think it entices you to maybe stay more or even order more...”
James, 36, a barista in Amsterdam categorises Maryam’s certain crowd more:
“They are mostly white and middle-class people, I would say. They would have some sort of more educational background, so lots of people who like wine tasting and food tasting also like specialty coffees... here also a lot of start-up people and creative people come... young professionals also use the place as their office; you know, they sit here with their laptops... I have some customers coming two times a day in the morning and afternoon and spend about €10... they don’t like to have everything or more in their lives but quality... like you usually see people come in wearing nice clothes, expensive shoes, nice
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watches, very expensive laptops, the latest smartphones, that’s kind of a package and inventing in everything with quality... we also have a lot of expats and students here... another category might be like housewives and moms don’t work; so you can see moms with kids, and housewives come here to meet friends and have a cup of coffee together...”
Alireza, 28, a graduated PhD from the USA also lists the similar fraction of society frequenting specialty coffeehouses in Tehran:
“I cannot see all types of people here... mostly young people like us, students, you know... I also can see a certain type of people based upon their income, which is obvious to me from their behaviours, clothes, and wearing styles... they are mostly high-income and from upper-middle families, they have enough money to spend on these kinds of expensive coffees...there are some schools around here so a lot of students, a lot of families with or without children... it’s mostly people I think between 20 and 40, so younger people...”
Not surprisingly, Maria, 23, a general practitioner in Glasgow classifies ‘coffee people’ as:
“Coffee people with higher education because, first of all, you do have to have money... Also people are here like looking good and careful about their clothes... I think people here are self-conscious and educated in general.”
Observations and conducted interviews have shown that specialty coffee bars in all three studied cities attract predominantly homogeneous groups of visitors: students, university staff, high-income urban professionals, managerial workers (the so-called knowledge workers), entrepreneurs, financial workers, and other (well paid) private-sector workers, yuppies, dinks, cool creative, hipsters, and BoBos (Roseberry, 1996; Whimster, 1992; Brooks, 2000; Grief et al., 2010; Schiermer, 2014; Gelmers & Rath, 2015). Tightly-knit networks of similar others, they tend to be mostly young and well-educated, having high human capital, and working in sectors like software and IT, technology-intensive production, business, finance, personal services, as well as a wide array of cultural industries ranging from music and media to fashion-intensive crafts.
Constantly redefining their privileged position within society, coffee people have appeared to insatiably search for new and different aesthetic experiences. Put differently, through converting their cultural capital into an abstract taste, they have appeared to navigate through a broad culturally expressive activities, bodily self-surveillance, and environmentally awareness, which rubs against its pursuit of likeness and identity. Although the empirical ethnographic data acknowledges the diversity of class practices of visitors of the studied
10 specialty coffee bars, they share a set of qualities visible through their everyday consumption practices which revolves around metropolitan body, cosmopolitan omnivorism, and environmental responsibility.
4.1. Metropolitan body
Bourdieu (1984) has already argued that bodies and their associated consumption practices are classed. The tendency of patrons of the studied specialty coffeehouses towards public performance of self is most noticeable in their engagement in their bodies, in how they present themselves in their clothes, speech, manners, posture, bearing, appearance, etiquette, performance, caring, maintaining, decorating of bodies, and in their theatrical, conspicuous display of self (Bridge & Dowling, 2001; Featherstone, 2006; 2010). Analyses of behaviours of visitors suggest that appearance, body shape, and physical control as having become increasingly central to their sense of identity. Almost all of the participants have revealed that they place a great emphasis upon their appearance, display, and the management of impressions, a form of bodily conscious style through methods of somatic improvement involving diet, sports, yoga, and a whole host of bodily practices and disciplines. For example, Angela, 35, a fashion designer in Amsterdam explains her attention to balance health, appearance, and happiness:
“When I was younger, I tend to do a lot of exercise like ballet, and extracurricular, but I think when you are working full time, it is kind of hard to go to the gym as much as you want to... but I try to exercise, so I go to the gym and do yoga but half of it for fitness and half of it for like stress relieve... I also go running for being fit and healthy... once a week, I go to a park and exercise with a group... also by myself, I run two times a week just like an old way of being fit and organising thoughts.”
Clair, 28, a post-doc student and a young mom in Glasgow has also expressed how she uses the available opportunities to work on her body:
“As a mom, I am trapped in home for the whole day taking care of my baby girl so it’s nice to be somewhere else if I could... so I go to buggyfitting. With a group of other moms, we go to Kelvingrove Park, and there are moms buggying. So I go there and start doing a lot of work there.”
If the previous waves of coffee have been about common tastes, mass production, and massive bodies, artisanal, aesthetic, third wave of coffee seems to be about construction and representation of refined (or reflexive) tastes, craft production, and crafted bodies. For
11 instance, Morteza, 25, a barista in Tehran defines his body as an instrument, a professional, portable toolkit for his job which he tries to enhance its capabilities:
“For improving my tasting and sensory skills, I have stopped smoking and alcoholic drinks, become a vegetarian, and also started exercising and hiking... I have devoted a lot of my time to sports which is really important to me and my job... I am mostly at gyms exercising... I go for swimming, volleyball, football, table tennis, and parkour... I am also following a healthy diet and even use some sports and diet apps on my iPhone to keep track of my progress...”
It seems that the body has changed from a biological fact into a ‘project’ (Giddens 1991) and a ‘performance’ (Goffman, 1959; 1963), has become plastic, a lifestyle accessory, a ‘thing’ to be sculpted (Hancock et al., 2000), shaped, and ‘stylised’ (Featherstone, 1987; 1991; 2006; 2007; 2010; 2011). As a vehicle of pleasure and self-expression, the body needs to be ‘maintained’, requires servicing, regular care, and attention to preserve maximum efficiency. In this sense, the body as a malleable phenomenon reflects social and cultural forces, a fleshy testimonial to the aestheticisation of everyday life (Turner, 2006; 2008).
Coffee people through the conversion of their cultivated disposition into a distinct type of ‘physical capital’ inscribed in their bodies grasp a sense of self-esteem and confidence to be better able to move through interpersonal spaces of sociability to enjoy the full range of lifestyle opportunities and pleasures on offer (Shilling, 2003; 2005; 2007; 2008; 2011). In addition, the made observations propose that the presentation of the body within specialty coffee bars seems not to be just about the embodiment of cultural capital, but also the aesthetics of ephemerality and the power to affect others (Appadurai, 1996; Featherstone, 2010; Cregan, 2006). In other words, through creative, stylistic self-assertion and the dynamics of self-enhancement via the beautification of ‘the look’ coupled with an appropriate body style, they represent what Laura Mulvey (1975) has called scopophilia (the love of gazing), an affective metropolitan body.
4.2. Cosmopolitan omnivorism
Having access to rich cultural and economic resources, the interviewed participants have shown to be culturally flexible, mobile, and knowledgeable. The taste-making capability of human-capital-heavy groups has enabled them to associate with a wide range of cultural engagements and leisure activities (Wright, 2011; Meuleman & Savage, 2013). They have appeared to be curious and hold an abstract taste for a variety of cultural items, a specific
12 attitude towards the appreciation of various foreign goods. As an aesthetic disposition, they possess cosmopolitan/multi-cultural capital, which makes it a tool to assert their distinctive identity, an orientation of openness to cultural others, systems of beliefs, competencies, and consumption (Hannerz, 1990; 1996). Participants have elaborated that they search for new cultural experiences such as dining out and trying different cuisines, travelling, learning new languages, listening to vast musical genres, watching various types of movies, reading practices, and following a variety of news. For example, Pepijn, 35, a financial manager in Amsterdam explains his very broad tastes in cultural activities:
“I do listen to anything, and it does cover almost anything. I’m interested in lots of 80s and 90s, rock, metal, jazz, hip hop, punk, blues. I listen to lots of folk music... I also love travelling... yesterday my girlfriend said I want to go to a holiday and then we decided to go to Kazakhstan... we would go there for 3 weeks and we normally would never do it but she wants every time something different... and I guess it is a cheap place to go to... we also love different foods and it doesn’t matter what kitchen it is, no, we go everywhere and try different things... but not to stay at an Italian place or something like that... tomorrow we go to a Mongolian restaurant... in the south of the Netherlands, we have a great Mongolian restaurant and we go to try that out... I’ve been there like three times but it is really amazing... we also have an Afghani restaurant but I guess the Mongolian kitchen is more rough... we try everything... also when I go out with friends, we try the Lebanese kitchen and why not even Chinese...If we have time, we would also check Greek, Albanian, Thai, Spanish, French, and Turkish food.”
Mina, 35, a sales management, in a coffeehouse in Tehran also describes her taste in news:
“For my profession, I follow the economic news of the world... I follow the news every day at 8 and also read the paper when I’m here... I have some news apps on my phone, so I could check to see what’s happening... also on the Internet, I check all the headlines... But I follow very much economic news, and I go really into the depth by reading economic articles... We are also subscribed for some newspaper and receive them on the daily basis, so we are constantly reading news and know what’s going on... I also follow the news you cannot ignore like the refugees, wars, political situations... I think I follow them but not very deeply just to know what’s going on... I also interested in cultural news like about movies...”
The presence of ‘cultural eclecticism’ (Ollivier, 2008; Lizardo, 2006; 2014; Peterson, 1992; 2005) amongst high-status groups requires individuals a form of ‘cultural tolerance’ (Lizardo & Skiles, 2012) to cross between ‘high’ and ‘low’ cultural boundaries (Bourdieu, 1984) in
13 their cultural choices. For instance, Sachi, 31, a post-doc student in Glasgow expresses his reading habit:
“I read a lot of different books such as the New York Times bestsellers...I also like to read the classical English literature... however, in general although I’m curious about different things, but I’m not interested enough to go deep into it that’s why I read a lot of different texts such as humanities, philosophy, history, urban stuff, theology, religion, sociology, cultural stuff, anthropology... Because my work in based on philosophy of technology, understanding technology and the relationship between human and technology, so I have to understand so many things... also because of the time pressure, I’m a big fan of short stories.”
In this regard, participants have created a privileged lifestyle through cosmopolitan omnivorism as an intellectual disposition which can be conceptualised through aesthetising ‘the other’ elements and material practices and engagement with non-local cultural goods in everyday urban living.
4.3. Environmental responsibility
Another common ground and widely expressed characteristic of coffee people besides their body aesthetics and omnivorism is their awareness about the earth, sustainability, and environment. The investigation suggests that the participates try to complement their concern with ‘internal environment’ of bodily experience (Shilling, 2007; 2008; Featherstone, 2011) through ecological orientations and green movements via activities highlight the importance of ‘looking after’ the environment in parallel with looking after themselves. For example, Aldert, 43, a manager in an insurance company in Amsterdam shows his interests in environmental preservation:
“In the period when I was going to the university, I was really politically active and there is still an ideology like that in me; but, of course, when you work, more energy goes to that direction than the other... because we work, we have enough money, and it’s easier to be politically correct, so we buy biological products and stuff, which is easy... we separate our garbage and we do the stuff that is available to us but not much more... I also do some voluntary works but not directly related to environment but still humanitarian stuff, which relates, to some extent, to environment.”
The emergence of pro-environmental behaviours amongst the participants derives from their responsible consumption by which eco-conscious and socio-economically privileged individuals practice and promote environmentally-friendly lifestyles as a way to contribute to
14 quality of life and better neighbourhood, city, and planetary environments (Kharas & Gertz, 2010; McEwan et al., 2015; Soron, 2010). As an extended impersonal form of cultivated cultural capital which is embedded within the wider concept of civic responsibility (Lange & Meier, 2009; Brandi & Büge, 2014; Anantharaman, 2014), environmental awareness contributes to the protection of nature through redefining personal consumption patterns by taking environment into account while making purchasing decisions. For Sharon, 59, a social worker in Glasgow, her environmental concerns include:
“from my personal, direct environment, I try not to make much trash, but I only use the channels that are there like separating my garbage and put them into garbage bins or I don’t put litter out on the street... subconsciously, I think I try not to pollute my direct environment... I also try to shop locally and use my bike for doing stuff within my area...”
In addition, by reflecting critically on environment and guiding their consumption patterns in sustainable directions, coffee people individualise and de-politicise the environmental responsibility. Differently put, although it is a normative narrative to solve the environmental issues through political decision-making but the interviewees have typically expressed that they have personal actions to do and individual sacrifices to make alongside of the large-scale political solutions. For instance, Sahar, 25, an art student in Tehran describes her personal responsibilities to ‘mother earth’:
“I do agree with the global warming and think it needs very serious large-scale political actions to be taken to tackle this threatening gloomy danger... however, personally, I do believe that I have some responsibilities for mother earth. My actions are indeed small but still better than nothing and could make some small changes... I try to drive my car less, take subway or other public transportation modes to go to the university or when I go out with friends... I also walk a lot for short distances, try to eat a lot of vegetarian foods instead of meat... In general, I try to be kind to mother earth...”
5. Discussion: the growth of the new global middle classes
There are several other case studies which have suggested that during the past several decades consumption patterns, for example, in not only the West/North but also in the emerging economies such as China, India, South Africa, South Korea, and Brazil have considerably changed with an increased proportion of expenditures being spent on housing, transport, recreation, education, clothing, and other aesthetic commodities, goods, and services (Brandi & Büge, 2014; Kochhar, 2015; Dobbs et al., 2012; Polson, 2011; Anantharaman, 2014; Koo, 2016; Drabble et al., 2015; McEwan et al., 2015; Kharas & Gertz, 2010; Beinhocker et al.,
15 2007; Calicchio et al., 2007; Artigas & Calicchio, 2007; Hansakul, 2010). Consequently, the growth of the new middle classes around the globe is, obviously, a result of increasing availability of disposable incomes in their hands and educational pursuits, which have modified their styles of living and consumption patterns, wherein there is a shift from acquiring basic goods to buying discretionary goods. It could be also argued that the emerging new global middle classes is anchored in the convergent socio-cultural, political, economic, and environmental values and attitudes of the new middle classes across the world.
In addition to the meta-concepts such as cultural globalisation, the emergence of the new global middle classes is associated in the establishment of certain infrastructures and institutions which gives the new national middle classes opportunities of cultural transmission, reproduction, and reception on a global level. The developments of transport infrastructures and communication technologies such as telecommunications, satellite, computing, the Internet, radio, television, jet airlines, media, and advertising during the late 20th century have facilitated an enormous growth of interurban flows of creative capital, skilled labour forces, commodities, goods, services, policies, cultural images, symbols, ideas, and modes of thought. In return, the new national middle classes who have money, time, confidence, and motivation to catalyse significant transformations within societies, especially within the Global South, through a cultural synchronisation emanating from the West and a combination of consumption and investment in their physical capital have resulted in lifestyles which are not locally bounded anymore and the emergence of the North in the South.
Nevertheless, it should be noted that the term new global middle classes is a conceptually very complex concept, and cannot be reduced to refer to a homogenised group with a clear boundary. The study presented in this paper in conjunction with the emerging literature on the new global middle classes suggests that the new national middle classes through combining their local particularities and contextual specificities with the global mindsets embody glocalised lifestyles or what Robertson (2001: 462) says: “difference-within-sameness.” These classes, therefore, have a globalised mind but remain rooted in their local urban settings, where they belong to their dense networks of friends and family and invest in the functioning of their local social, cultural, political, economic, and environmental spheres.
16
6. Conclusion
The study of visitors of specialty coffee bars in Tehran, Glasgow, and Amsterdam discussed within this paper suggests that although class compositions are not entirely the same and
occupational class, education, cultural know-how, and class of origin all strongly condition the attributes of consumption and load heavily on the participants’ lifestyles and despite the diversity amongst the propositions, make ups, pace, scale, and spread of the new middle classes within the studied cities, with regard to their consumption patterns, they share some common traits, ethical dispositions, and cultural practices. Possessing adequate economic and cultural resources, the interviewees have revealed that, alongside of their embodied expressive lifestyles, they participate actively in the engagement with the global cultural others via their omnivorous tastes and cosmopolitan attitudes as part of global cultural capital in the context of environmental concerns and responsible consumption. Noticeably more globally oriented than other members of society, patrons of specialty coffee bars as a fraction within the new middle classes enjoy the consumption styles of life, feel comfortable within foreign/other cultures and value-systems, aware of environmental challenges, exhibit a global orientation in their work, leisure, and mobility patterns, and are identified primarily by their high-income status or by their lifestyles and identity.
The paper has contributed to the sociology of consumption and argued that the aesthetic consumption practices of the new middle classes are driven by a conscious reflexivity to develop their social identities and relations. Their performance of lifestyles, as objective and subjective notions of their classes, is suggesting that class boundaries are being redrawn through particular combinations of economic and cultural capital. In return, the urban landscape is now predominantly lined with hoardings of international brands and non-local consumer goods, spaced out by new and green consumption amenities, and marked by leisure spaces, while the body is often shaped by the latest fashion items and somatic improvement and signalled by the latest portable technologies.
The study has also highlighted that how comparing and analysing regulars of local coffee bars, their motivations, characteristics, and activities could shed light on the larger societal trends and talk about large-scale structural changes in the composition of the world population, economy, values, and ideology. It also draws attention to how micro-level analyses can provide macro-level insights on the class structural changes within individual societies and class dynamics brought about by globalisation.
17 However, it is worth noting here again that the study has merely focused on the qualities that coffee people share through their mundane, everyday consumption patterns within only three cases. As a result, although visitors of specialty coffee bars seem to be part of the new middle classes, the widely contested area of the new middle classes should not be reduced to patrons of coffee bars. Moreover, the current investigation has explored the common grounds amongst the participants visible through their consumption practices. But what shared values, dispositions, and qualities could be possibly identified not only through consumption but also other viewpoints such as their political constructs, housing preferences, family demography/complexity, parent(s)-kid(s) relationships, education, aging, health, and medical care, mobility, and transportation? Last but not least, the study has been conducted within only three cities; consequently, the results could and should not be generalised as global trends visible in every society. This is a set of concerns suggesting some further investigations on the urban practices of the new global middle classes within different countries, societies, and urban settings through inter- and multi-disciplinary optics of analysis.
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