Paper short abstract:

Romantic perceptions and representations of the Cypriot Coffee- house have contributed to the transformation of the ‘indigenous’ kafeneion into a traditionalized coffee shop which is offered to tourists as an ‘authentic’ Cypriot experience.

Paper long abstract:

Conventional romantic representations of the kafeneion by traveler photographers of the colonial period in Cyprus, but also photographs widely used within the tourist industry as well as the output of a local 'romantic photographic school' have contributed to the transformation of the 'indigenous' kafeneion into a traditionalized coffee shop. The aesthetics of the kafeneion, in its contemporary 'indigenous' version will be examined. It will be argued that the material culture of the kafeneion is revealing of a general vernacular aesthetic but also of variation and therefore a variety of active communal identities. The significant role the kafeneion has been playing in the process of the flow of political communication will be discussed and it will be argued that this function of the kafeneion has been ignored, by both, romantic photographers in the past and tourists' enchanters nowadays. Further it will explore the consumption of a modernist vernacular culture by the working classes within its confines. The romanticization of aesthetics, as expressed in traditionalized coffee shops, serving mainly tourists will also be examined. The kafeneion contemporary functions as a political, cultural and social space have been strategically ignored and replaced by signifiers of tradition, rurality and peasantry. It will be argued that in the framework of cultural tourism, there was a change in the semiotic value of the kafeneion. Traditionalized coffee shops are no longer symbols of cosmopolitanism and modernity but symbols of an essentialized and enchanting Mediterranean culture.