How do coffeehouses create a third place for international students: Hookah Lounge and Coffeehouse as case study

Akram M Ijla

University of Palestine, Gaza

E-mail: akramijla@yahoo.co.uk

Accepted 12 July, 2012

Abstract

This paper examines the coffeehouse’s role in creating and facilitating a third place for international students at the USA Universities. It is an attempt to identify Hookah Coffeehouse, a coffeehouse which is located near Cleveland State Campus in Ohio,  as a third place that become part of the Cleveland State University international students cultural landscape and to shed light on its role in fostering social life among them. Hookah as an illustrative case, this report presents and analyzes the social, spatial, and cultural aspects that create a third place for international students at Cleveland State University. The paper shows how these social aspects change private space to become public place. The conclusions point to the dynamic and the elastic nature of social places as expressed in specific cultural contexts of the international students who are studying and living in Cleveland.

Keywords: Coffeehouses, international students, Hookah Lounge