This lecture asks how the spatial politics of migration have been inflected by histories of colonialism. Using the example of the Anglo-Caribbean island of Barbados and its majority African-descended population, Osayimwese examines migration to the Global North as a response to the inequitable structure of plantation society. She shows that migration fundamentally transformed the structure of Barbadian society by enabling property acquisition through remittances. The remittance landscape that ensued, however, encompassed both land and houses on the island and property purchased in receiving countries, which remain connected by particular Afro-Caribbean approaches to land ownership and modes of dwelling.

Itohan Osayimwese is an architectural and urban historian. She is assistant professor of history of art and architecture at Brown University. She engages with theories of modernity, postcoloniality, and globalization to analyze German colonial architecture, urban design, and visual culture; modern architecture in Germany; African and African diaspora material cultural histories; and the architecture of development in Africa. Another research interest is the architectural and urban lives of religious cults. She received a BA from Bryn Mawr College, an M.Arch. from Rice University, then a master’s and PhD in the history of architecture from the University of Michigan A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning.