The Rise of Cafe-Going and the Culture of Waithood

We usually explain the boom of cafe culture through lifestyle changes, increased coffee consumption, or the imitation of global patterns. But perhaps in some societies, it can be viewed from another perspective: a cafe is sometimes a place where 'unwanted free time' is consumed. When entering the labor market becomes difficult, jobs are unstable, starting a family and economic independence are postponed, and the future changes from a relatively predictable path into something ambiguous, a part of young people's lives is spent in a state between expectation and suspension. In the literature of youth studies, an interesting term has been coined for this state: waithood, a combination of wait and adulthood; meaning a period when a person is no longer a teenager in terms of age, but due to economic and social barriers, has not yet been able to fully enter adulthood roles. Research on the Middle East has also linked youth unemployment to this postponement of independence, housing, marriage, and the sense of participation in the social contract. From this angle, the cafe can be one of the geographical places of 'waiting': a relatively cheap place to be out of the house, see others, talk, work on a laptop, build relationships, and perhaps most importantly, maintain the feeling that our social life is still ongoing. The case of Greece is noteworthy in this regard.

However, a simple rule cannot be extracted from this evidence to say that 'wherever unemployment is higher, cafe culture is also higher'. The existing evidence does not prove such a causal and universal relationship. Even a comparative study between Greek and British youth after the financial crisis shows that economic pressure can change the form of consumption: under the pressure of financial constraints, young people move away from accumulating goods and lean more towards consuming experiences, moments, and lifestyles. The cafe is an interesting commodity for such an economy because, by purchasing a drink, a person buys an 'experience' for a while: the place, socialization, music, internet (Wi-Fi), the possibility of being seen, and the feeling of presence in the city. For this reason, the price of a cup of coffee should not be considered just the cost of coffee; part of the money is actually paid for the temporary right to occupy a social space or renting a social environment.

The issue of identity is also important here. Ethnographic research shows us how cafes can be the stage for the formation and display of identity. A study on cafes in Pristina in post-socialist Kosovo[1] shows that cafe-patronage is intertwined with identity, social norms, and daily practices of socialization. A study on urban migrant youth in Surabaya, Indonesia, also views the cafe as a space for expressing youth taste, distinction, and identity, showing that these spaces are simultaneously influenced by the logic of consumption and the desire to be different. A more recent study in Saudi Arabia, based on about 600 hours of observation in 123 cafes in seven cities, considers even seemingly simple behaviors such as choosing a seat, ordering, taking photos, and posting them on social media as part of the process of constructing and displaying identity. In such a situation, the cafe is something between a private and public space: one can be among others without necessarily interacting with them; one can work without having a workplace; and one can display a (frozen and symbolic) image of a desirable life, even if the actual economic life is starkly distant from that image[2].

An economic crisis does not just reduce income; it sometimes creates a gap between "the identity a person imagines for themselves" and "the position the social structure provides for them." A young person who is educated, skilled, and sees themselves ready for an independent life (or is expected to see themselves as such!) might stay at their parents' home for years, have a temporary job, or find no job at all. Research on Greek youth not in employment, education, or training has shown that crisis and unemployment affect their expectations of the future and their perception of themselves. In such conditions, perhaps the cafe can be considered a kind of "liminal space": a place to live in the gap between who one is now and who they expected to have become by this age. In Istanbul, a study was conducted with the participation of 25 unemployed students aged 18 to 24, showing that for them, the cafe is not only a place to meet, but a place for "social visibility" and presenting identity, and this plays a role in choosing the "place."

Therefore, the abundance of cafes in a city cannot immediately be considered a sign of prosperity or decline. The cafe is an important human laboratory. A cafe can be the product of a middle-class boom, but in other conditions, it may coincide with youth unemployment, cheap labor, a low-yield service economy, delayed independence, an identity crisis, as well as the occupation of new spaces for a pre-political movement. Perhaps to understand cafe-patronage we should look less at the coffee itself and more at "time" and "space": who sits in the cafe for hours, where do these hours come from, what other options were there to spend them, and what does the person gain in those few hours? Socializing, escaping from home, the possibility of work, visibility, belonging, or just a place to wait? Where are these cafes? Why and how are they chosen? What is their relationship with other "places" and spaces of "gathering"? In this sense, the cafe, its menu, its prices, its decor, its geographical location, its management mechanism, and the composition of its customers function as an extremely important social laboratory, and precisely from this perspective, it can be one of the pre-political infrastructures of collective action and a threat to a power that devotes its efforts to controlling and occupying spaces and times.

The post-socialist Kosovar model closely resembles Albania’s post-communist model. Albania has the highest number of cafés per capita in the world. There are roughly 654 cafés for every 100,000 people—equivalent to about one operating café for every 150 residents across the country.

One even more interesting finding from the study could be particularly useful for thinking about Iran. It suggests that price, location, interior design, and brand prestige all shape who feels they belong in a café and who is able to be “seen” there. More expensive specialty cafés tend to become spaces of **distinction**, where taste and visibility carry greater social value, while cheaper cafés function more as ordinary spaces of sociability. This is precisely where Bourdieu’s concept of *distinction* becomes relevant: the choice of café, type of coffee, clothing, laptop, where one sits, and even the photograph taken of a cup may all become part of the performance of social position and identity.