This presentation discusses the experience of preparing Cuban coffee in my kitchen in Canada as I connect to my students through zoom during an early morning class. I reflect on how making, drinking and being addictive to coffee creates a form of correspondence between our bodies and a tragic past.
Paper long abstract:
Teaching the Anthropology of the Caribbean to undergraduate students whom many have never put a foot outside of Canada can be challenging when experiential learning is at the core value of one’s teaching philosophy. In time of COVID, this geographic disconnection may be even more complicated by the fact that online teaching can detach students and teachers from possible sensorial pedagogical experiences –except from what can be transmitted through images and sounds transduced by the zoom meeting. This presentation discusses the approach of considering everyday life “rituals” as enmeshed in a series of anthropologically meaningful correspondences, including small actions and daily activities we just take for granted such as preparing our morning cafe. As a case in point, this presentation reflects on the experience of preparing Cuban coffee in my kitchen in Canada as I connect to my students through zoom during an early morning class. More than just making coffee though, I use this ritual to connect with my students, to welcome them in my home as friends would do when visiting each other. I also used coffee making to talk about Indigenous resistance, slavery, colonialism, plantation system and exploitation. I end up tasting the coffee to talk about senses and the taste of burned and dried beans of coffee. The colour, the oily sensation of the beans when we touch them with our fingers, the colour and the smell of the raw beans, are all indicative factors that can help engage with the embodied experience of coffee and the land where it comes from. Making coffee takes all of its significance when we reflect on the correspondences between the historical tragedies that brought this beverage into our kitchen and the addiction we feel for it. Making coffee is a daily action for most of my students, independently of how they prepare it; the process connects us with a distant past that may seem geographically disconnected. But if we really think about it, we can come to the understanding that we also relate with the soil in which the beans come from with every sip of coffee.
Accepted Contribution:
Contribution description:
Paper long abstract:
Teaching the Anthropology of the Caribbean to undergraduate students whom many have never put a foot outside of Canada can be challenging when experiential learning is at the core value of one’s teaching philosophy. In time of COVID, this geographic disconnection may be even more complicated by the fact that online teaching can detach students and teachers from possible sensorial pedagogical experiences –except from what can be transmitted through images and sounds transduced by the zoom meeting. This presentation discusses the approach of considering everyday life “rituals” as enmeshed in a series of anthropologically meaningful correspondences, including small actions and daily activities we just take for granted such as preparing our morning cafe. As a case in point, this presentation reflects on the experience of preparing Cuban coffee in my kitchen in Canada as I connect to my students through zoom during an early morning class. More than just making coffee though, I use this ritual to connect with my students, to welcome them in my home as friends would do when visiting each other. I also used coffee making to talk about Indigenous resistance, slavery, colonialism, plantation system and exploitation. I end up tasting the coffee to talk about senses and the taste of burned and dried beans of coffee. The colour, the oily sensation of the beans when we touch them with our fingers, the colour and the smell of the raw beans, are all indicative factors that can help engage with the embodied experience of coffee and the land where it comes from. Making coffee takes all of its significance when we reflect on the correspondences between the historical tragedies that brought this beverage into our kitchen and the addiction we feel for it. Making coffee is a daily action for most of my students, independently of how they prepare it; the process connects us with a distant past that may seem geographically disconnected. But if we really think about it, we can come to the understanding that we also relate with the soil in which the beans come from with every sip of coffee.
Anthropology as education
Session 1