@conference {977631,
	title = {The Economic History of Transportation and Coffee Shops in South Asia},
	booktitle = {WCFIA Undergraduate Thesis Conference},
	year = {2017},
	month = {February 3},
	publisher = {Weatherhead Center for International Affairs},
	organization = {Weatherhead Center for International Affairs},
	address = {Cambridge, MA},
	abstract = {My research focuses on the nature of changing class aspirations and identities in South Asia{\textemdash}specifically: India, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. I investigated my topic through the lens of coffee shop businesses that have come up in this part of the world in the last two decades, following the beginning of economic liberalization and the opening up of local markets. Through observing interactions that took place in these public spaces, interviews of coffee shop patrons, and other forms of collected data (e.g., marketing material produced by coffee businesses), I sought to analyze the role of coffee shops in regards to the manifestation of socioeconomic markers of class. In piecing together a historical understanding of the kinds of people who visit such coffee shops, I was able to ascertain the class associations that these businesses often enable, engender, and transform in contemporary South Asia. My findings span various thematic categories: social spaces (e.g., coffee shops as places for teenagers and young adults to hang out and go on dates), workplace culture (e.g., the availability of Wi-Fi internet enabling coffee shops to become potent spaces for professionals working on laptop computers), {\textquoteleft}globalization{\textquoteright}/{\textquoteright}glocalization{\textquoteright} (e.g., the appropriation and transformation of \&nbsp;national/transnational consumer cultures as manifested in the personalized availability of food and non-coffee drinks served in South Asian coffee shop businesses), media (e.g., the immense influence of the American television show Friends in regards to the development of coffee shop culture), pricing (e.g., the alignment of coffee chains{\textquoteright} geographically based price differentiation with the specific economic attributes of the different neighborhoods where these businesses{\textquoteright} outlets are located), and so on.\&nbsp;},
	author = {Venkatesh, Bharath}
}
