Thinking Allowed

Urban baristas in a US city and Chinese managed coffee bars in Italy.Laurie Taylor talks to Geoffrey Moss, Professor of Instruction in the Department of Sociology, Temple University, about the subcultural lives of hipsters who are employed in Philadelphia. Such young people have taken low-wage service sector jobs, despite their middle-class origins and educational background, because they enjoy the city's hipster subculture. Working within cool, noncorporate coffee shops with like minded colleagues blurs lines between work and leisure. For those that are artistic, barista life has provided a flexible work schedule which allows time for creative pursuits. But this new research suggests that these subcultural lives are now greatly diminished by class, race and gentrification. Also, Grazia Ting Deng, Lecturer at Brandeis University's Department of Anthropology, explores the paradox of “Chinese espresso". The coffee bar is a cornerstone of Italian urban life, with city residents sipping espresso at more than 1