Samantha Lytle

Field Site Proposal

How do Germans take their coffee? This is a question I have been asking myself ever since I have noticed a pattern in German coffee culture within my own extended family. I intend to answer this question by observing and participating in the German custom of coffee and cake at various locations around Summerville, SC. My field sites will be the homes of German women who host coffee and cake, including my own home.

Since this is a subject that is very familiar to me I don’t expect difficulty with entrée. Some of my informants will be family members in the US and in Germany, friends of my family in the US, as well as people unknown to me from the German Club in Charleston. What they all will have in common is their nationality. Without exception I will interview only German women. I would like to narrow my informants down to women only, because men do not host “Kaffeekränschen” and because they do not usually contribute much to this custom. I will, however, inquire about the participation and roles of men during coffee and cake during my interviews with my female informants, so as not to exclude men from my study completely.

My research will include personal interviews with German women from the local area, questionnaires for those women I can not interview personally because they live in Germany, participation and observation of coffee and cake at various homes in the local area, including field-notes, sound and video recordings, and publications that give information about the custom and history of coffee and cake. I am able to make use of several sites because I expect to find them all very similar in their function and setup, but I expect to see some differences in the routines and behaviors of hosts as well as guests.

Three interviews into this project I have already noticed differences in my informants’ answers. I started out with the belief that I had been taught the proper ways of coffee and cake, and have come to realize already that my expectations of similarities might fail me. Stubbornly I try to ask my questions differently, hoping to get the answers I want (answers that match my upbringing), but I have come to the conclusion that the definition of coffee and cake will vary with every family. I say family, not individual, because coffee and cake is nonetheless a tradition passed down through the women in the family, so I expect everyone in that family to serve coffee and cake as their mother did.

I expect to have several opportunities to join “Kaffekränschen” at different households throughout the semester. Germans are generally very eager to invite someone over for coffee and cake, so I do not foresee a lack or shortage of field-sites. During each of these visits I hope to be able to film, take pictures of, and voice record the hostess and her guests.

Concerns I have about my project are (1) my bias towards my own coffee culture, (2) that some women may not want to speak too openly with me because they know me or my mother and fear being the subject of future gossip, (3) that some of my questions may be insulting or disrespectful to my informants, and (4) that I may not come up with a large enough sample size. Another concern of mine is that I feel as though I am unmasking a part of German culture that Germans did not consider culturally significant to begin with, and my research of their culture may make them feel akward about their customs. If I demystify coffee and cake, will they still be able to enjoy it without feeling self-conscious about their behavior? At the same time, will my attention to this custom inspire my younger informants to maintain a tradition they may have otherwise considered outdated because they did not realize the cultural value in it?