Lara Evoy, moderating the University of the Streets Café at Café Sarajevo, November 29, featuring Opéra de Montréal director David Moss and co-sponsored by the Concordia and McGill alumni associations. The alumni associations also co-hosted a Café on February 21, and plan to feature others in future. Photo by Owen Egan
Before tea became the treasured drink of the British,
before telephones, telegraphs or an efficient postal service existed
in England, coffeehouses brought people face to face in conversation,
and coffee — “syrup of soot and essence of old shoes,”
as it was called — stimulated debate.
Since their 16th-century origins in Persia, cafés have been forums not only for coffee drinking, smoking and games of backgammon or chess, but for provocative intellectual exchange. Cafés took root in England in 1652, when Pasqua Rosée opened the first European coffeehouse in London after arriving from Turkey as a merchant’s servant. Londoners soon established coffeehouses throughout the city, and the dimly lit, smoky spaces became venues for dialogue, political debate, social criticism and, of course, gossip. The mostly male patrons exchanged some of the first broadsides and newspapers, considered the origins of journalism. Of course, cafés soon spread to Europe and beyond, where to this day they remain harbours of thoughtful discussion.
Montreal is the site of the latest development in coffee-fuelled history: the University of the Streets Café, an initiative of Concordia’s Institute in Management and Community Development, created in part thanks to private donations (most notably by Concordia Governor Emeritus Miriam Roland). For the past two and a half years, once or twice a week in neighbourhoods such as Ville-Marie, NDG, Cartierville and Mile End, the project has been intentionally transforming Montreal java establishments into spaces of social, political and community dialogue. Spring sessions include The Power of Food, Our Neighbourhood: Here and Elsewhere, Creators, and Planning for Sustainable Development. While not every locale is an actual café — bookstores, shopping malls, community centres and even parks are used — the sessions, in both French and English, cultivate the welcoming café atmosphere whatever the setting.
From west to east
Like the Institute in Management and Community Development, which operates under Concordia’s Centre for Continuing Education, the University of the Streets Café is committed to inclusive learning for people of diverse cultures, communities and socioeconomic backgrounds, offering socially relevant — sometimes contentious — topics. University of the Streets Café program coordinator Eric Abitbol, atttendee 94, explains, “I was basically handed this mandate: imagine going to cafés and having conversations with people you know and don’t know.”
To develop the program, Abitbol and program associate Janice Astbury spent eight months sharing ideas with local colleagues and community members. They also headed to British Columbia, home of Simon Fraser University’s Philosophers’ Café and other popular education movements. In Vancouver’s downtown eastside, Abitbol and Astbury spoke with people like Aramis Padmos, the director of the Society for Women’s Empowerment in Education Transition (SWEET), who lent practical advice. “The work that SWEET is doing in terms of learner-driven education was definitely inspiring,” says Abitbol.
As it turned out, SFU’s Philosophers’ Café proved to be an appealing model. Like Beat poets, bohemians and young urban professionals, philosophers are among those often found in café settings. But the award-winning Philosophers’ Café transcends the cliché of the Parisian terraces and welcomes all participants to consider issues of the day, such as genetic engineering, free trade in the Americas and treaty negotiations between nations.
Street savvy
University of the Streets Café program coordinator Eric Abitbol at one of its venues, Montreal’s Café l’Utopik. Abitbol’s work as a researcher, writer and social activist has taken him to Africa, South Asia and the Mid East. Photo by Kendra Ballingall
Using the Philosophers’ Café as a starting point, Abitbol, Astbury and Institute director Lance Evoy tailored Concordia’s University of the Streets Café to the needs and interests of Montreal communities. Its stated goal is to create “gathering places for community members to pursue lifelong learning and engagement in the form of collective discussions.” “The Café initiatives also strengthen a local citizen network,” says Astbury, who is a regular Café moderator. She adds, “We really think about the community development aspect. We make an effort to get a sense of what’s happening in communities, and the people we work with are involved in those areas.” In the Cartierville district, for instance, Café participants discussed youth access to space in their neighbourhood.
Abitbol, who has a BA in political science from McGill and a master’s in international relations from the London School of Economics, describes the Café as a social, cultural and political intervention. “We distinguish the work that we’re doing here from the work that’s happening at the Philosophers’ Café for a number of reasons,” he explains. “One is that the interventions that we create, we often create as part of series.”
With topics organized into several series per season, Café sessions can get to the core of an idea or community concern. In the spring of 2004, Café discussions revolved around three series: Feminist Controversies, Development and the Environment, and The Joy of Food. Its fall season wrapped up with Intellectual Property in the Digital Age, The Social Economy, and Toward an Ecologically Sound Built Environment.
The series branch into more specific topics, often formulated as provocative questions. Abitbol says, “We try to find questions that welcome a broad range of perspectives so that we’re not coming up with an answer or a solution.” For example, the series on intellectual property deliberated: Public money versus private software? Who owns knowledge and culture? And, who controls my computer?
A penny for your thoughts
By charging a penny for entry, London coffeehouses of old earned the name “penny universities.” A patron would only need to light his pipe with the table’s candle to join a conversation. Likewise, accessibility, participatory pedagogy and experiential learning are among the founding tenets of the University of the Streets Café — whose sessions don’t cost a penny.
“The public conversation is where people are present as citizens,” says Abitbol. “They might work in community organizations, corporations or the media, but they don’t show up as representatives. People recognize themselves in the conversation, not because someone else says something that is exactly what they think, but because they’re participants.” He continues, “One of the strengths of the Cafés is that you don’t need to have a background in the subject or be experts or activists. It’s really a space where people can share ideas, critique practice and share experience.”
Answering questions
The University of the Streets Café can take several forms. One session, on November 28, celebrated Buy Nothing Day at Co-op La Maison Verte in NDG, a retail store (of all places) that sells eco-friendly products in addition to providing environmental services and consulting. Disguised as a free café, the Co-op served lemonade, coffee and cake and hosted musical and theatrical performances while the standard merchandise was not for sale.
Carla Sbert, a Co-op member and frequent University of the Streets Café moderator, co-directed the conversation. Sbert, who has a background in environmental law and policy in Mexico, the U.S. and Canada, asked participants, “What is a useless buy, how much money does the average person spend on useless buys and what else can be done with that money?”
At another fall event, the Concordia and McGill alumni associations sponsored a session at Café Sarajevo in downtown Montreal. Montreal-based researcher and curator Lara Evoy, MA 99, moderated the conversation, which featured Opéra de Montréal director David Moss, BComm 89, leading the discussion “Does culture still matter to you?” Among the subjects raised by participants were graffiti, zines, food and arts funding, as well as the sublime experience of opera — whether at the Paris Opera House or in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
From time to time, Café organizers evaluate their practices. “What kind of contribution does this make to society,” Astbury asks, “and how is that measurable? There is a certain faith to believing that community development is related to people connecting to one another. When I think of what makes a successful Café conversation, it’s that it continues. I’ve seen people really rethink things, and I know that they’re going away and continuing that conversation.” For Sbert, who will soon be moving to Ottawa, the University of the Streets Café has inspired plans to develop a similar program there. “I’m taking it with me wherever I go,” she says.
This spring season, the University of the Streets Café finds yet another form: a pannational conversation, Reconciliation: Transforming First Nations - Canada Relations, over the phone. “We work in cafés, we work in public parks, we work on the street and now we’re exploring teleconference,” says Abitbol. “We’re constantly exploring new forms that the public conversation could assume.” And the occasional syrup of soot as well.
Kendra Ballingall is a Montreal freelance writer.
For more information on the University of the Streets Café, visit univcafe.concordia.ca.
If you have any comments about this article, contact Howard Bokser,
(514) 848-2424 ext. 3826, Howard.Bokser@concordia.ca
