OLLI0085 - Coffee, Globalization, and Sustainable Development

Course Description

This course will explore the history and current state of the coffee industry as a framework for understanding the possibilities and pitfalls of globalization, international development institutions, and marketled sustainability initiatives. Beginning with a deep and troubling dive into coffee's insidious roots in slavery and colonialism, participants will move into understanding how the global trade began to change throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Participants will question the extent to which coffee in the 21st century maintains global and unjust patterns or challenges this status quo. In addition, the course will explore the history of development from the end of WWII onward, and describe how coffee policy and stakeholders have been influenced by this history and global development concepts. By the end of the course, participants will not be able to look at their morning cup of coffee the same way again. Watch video