In uncovering marginalized and silenced voices of the past, feminist oral historians and ethnographers emphasize the ways that oral history subjects use their conversations with researchers to define and make meaningful their own personal and communalhistories. This article explores how Iraqi diasporic women of diverse ethno-religious background use the formal ritual of coffee in oral history interviews to designate formal and informal spaces within these conversations. As I began to notice, the wayin which coffee was served, and importantly when it was served, was often a silent signal that the formal interview was over and that women wanted to transition into a more intimate and informal sharing of memories - in most cases over coffee and sweets(or qahwa and kleiche, in Arabic). In tracing the historical and contemporary cultural importance of coffee, and the formal ritual of serving coffee to guests, I examine the many ways in which Iraqi women used the senses to invoke and initiate memoriesthat are threaded with subjective and difficult pasts. Highlighting the contradictions between what is told on and off "the record," the article contributes to feminist methods of knowledge-production that push the boundaries of "sharing authority," andallow vulnerable migrant women to shape the interview space in order to designate "safe spaces" where they can share subjective lives.
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