April 30, 2025 • 45 mins
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Step into the Caribbean front room – that formal, pristine space with plastic-covered furniture, carefully displayed china, and family photographs that many Caribbean descendants immediately recognize. Dr. Stacey Scott joins us to explore how this distinctive domestic space functions as both cultural archive and architectural expression.
We dive deep into what Dr. Scott calls "Caribbean domesticity" – the language, care, memory, and rituals that shape our understanding of home. The front room emerges as a powerful site where seemingly contradictory impulses coexist: colonial respectability alongside cultural resistance, inaccessibility alongside preservation, formality alongside aspirational memory. For Caribbean families, particularly those in diaspora, these curated spaces become theaters of identity where family histories, migration journeys, and cultural values are displayed and transmitted across generations. Dr. Scott challenges us to recognize these domestic practices as legitimate architecture – not just decoration but sophisticated spatial philosophy created by our mothers and grandmothers without formal recognition.
Whether you grew up with a front room you weren't allowed to sit in or you're curious about the ways cultural memory is preserved through domestic space, this episode offers a fresh perspective on how Caribbean people have always been architects of their own experience. Listen now to discover how something as seemingly simple as a room with plastic-covered furniture reveals complex histories of dignity, aspiration, and cultural preservation.
Stacy Scott is an architectural researcher whose work centers on designing spaces for environments where permanence doesn’t apply. Her research focuses on temporary architecture, small-scale design, and how communities respond to climate change and social shifts. From Caribbean coastlines to health spaces, Stacy examines how architecture can respond to uncertainty, fragility, and cultural memory. Her work blends identity, resilience, and community care, always exploring real-world solutions for the spaces we live, work, and exist in.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean
history and culture, hosted byme, alexandria Miller.
Strictly Facts teaches thehistory, politics and activism
of the Caribbean and connectsthese themes to contemporary
music and popular culture.
Strictly Facts family hello,hello on a depon.
(00:22):
How are you doing All thethings right?
It is such a joy to know youall are enjoying the episodes
that we've been putting out thisyear.
It really brings joy to myheart to get some of your
messages.
As always, my name is AlexandriaMiller, your host of Strictly
Facts, a guide to Caribbeanhistory and culture, back again
with what I hope is anotherthought-provoking episode for
(00:43):
you all today.
For me, really, this one isinteresting because I emailed
our guest today, which I won't,you know, get into too much.
You all wouldn't know some ofthis info from the back end, but
I emailed our guest todaythinking that we would talk
about one thing and we ended updeciding on having a whole
different conversation, stilltangential, still on topic right
(01:05):
, but not exactly what I hopedfor, which I think you know it's
amazing.
So definitely brings a newelement to what I was initially
considering.
So I'm really grateful to haveher.
But before I introduce her, Iwant to, you know, shoot some
questions to you all to get youthinking about our episode today
.
And so, when you hear the termCaribbean architecture, what
(01:28):
comes to mind?
Specifically, what comes tomind when you think of
architecture and design ofCaribbean homes?
What do you think of?
Is it the shape, the color youknow that we usually repaint and
put up new curtains during theholidays or is it the rooms
themselves and how they aredesigned?
Our guest today has worked onprojects specifically on the
(01:51):
latter, and so first let meintroduce Dr Stacey Scott to the
show.
Dr Scott is a designer,researcher and educator
currently serving as anassistant professor at the
University of Virginia School ofArchitecture.
And so, as I said, dr Scott,welcome.
So much.
Tell us a little bit aboutyourself, your connection to the
region where you call home andwhat inspired your interest in
(02:13):
Caribbean architecture anddesign.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Thank you so much.
This is incredible.
I think it's awesome whatyou're doing.
Honored to be on this show, Iclaim Jamaica.
Okay, that's my country, that'smy motherland, I love talking
about Jamaica, so I can't waitto dive into it.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
And what inspired your interest in Caribbean
architecture and design you?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
know, right now the phrase mini search is kind of
taking off and I'm first gen orlike a post-migrant era of
Jamaican and I think for a lotof us there's this feeling of
displacement that we just haveto go after and I felt that same
interest in resolving thatdisplacement.
(03:00):
I don't know if I've dug thehole deeper but I've learned so
much along the way, it's beenworth it.
And my connection to theCaribbean is, you know, it's
personal and it's academic butit's sort of rooted in like the
lived experiences that I've seenand how limited that
information is in record and howI can resolve that in my
(03:22):
personal niche of interest.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
You know that's definitely the topic of our
conversation today, of sorts.
Right, I gave our listeners abit of a teaser.
When it comes to thinking about, you know Caribbean homes and
home life and you know thethings that make up Caribbean
homes.
Some would call that, you knowCaribbean domesticity, and I
(03:46):
know that's a term you use inyour research, and so, before we
dive into the specific topicthat we're talking about today
in terms of the actual home,could you define sort of for us
what you consider Caribbeandomesticity and how you feel
like it shapes who we are as aregion, as a culture, and you
know some of the cultural andimperial even influences that
have shaped our home lives?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Definitely I love that question so much.
To me, caribbean domesticityit's like a, it's a language,
it's care, it's memory, it'sstructural, it's a scent, it's
like the order, the pattern andthe shapes that emerge, and like
your understanding of home ingeneral.
(04:29):
It's how the rituals, sort of,are baked into your environment.
It's the Sunday best you know,the plastic covered furniture.
It's how certain changes thatare spatial become expressions
of love and dignity andaspiration and care.
(04:50):
And yeah, you're absolutelyright, it does carry a lot of
traces of empire, post-colonialsort of inheritance with it,
some positive, but a lot of itpretty complex and nuanced, a
lot of imposition.
But I think that what's reallygreat about Caribbean
(05:11):
architecture and Caribbeandomesticity is the way that we
reinterpret even that, even thethings that weren't imposed, and
the formality that was imposedand how we've made it woven into
our own cultural fabric and howwe've made that our own.
I think that's like one of myabsolute favorite things about
the Caribbean and domesticity ingeneral.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
You mentioned the sofa with the plastic covering
on it right, which is preciselypart of our conversation today.
Parts of your research havebeen exploring the front room as
part of, you know, caribbeandomesticity and the role that
the front room plays in terms ofwho we are, how we, even you
(05:54):
know, connect ourselves to thepast, how we keep things alive
and in memory in a lot of ways.
And so, before we dive too muchinto the front room and you
know, as you said, rememberingeven just you know you can't
even go in there or theuncomfortability of that couch,
for those who may be unfamiliarwith what exactly a front room
(06:17):
is, could you describe a littlebit about what it looks like,
the physical attributes you knowof a front room and what
distinguishes it really fromother rooms in Caribbean
households?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I'm happy to do that.
So the front room is the mostcurated, most formal space in a
Caribbean home and it's wherethe good furniture lives.
It's where you know the bestchina is displayed.
It's sort of a mix of memoryand aspiration placed in one
room.
(06:48):
There's photographs, there'slace, doilies, it's where the
family's sort of best andhighlight reel of, you know,
migration and also, like memoryof the past, a connection to for
me I will talk about Jamaicawhere it lives, and it's
(07:08):
distinct from the rest of thehouse because it's not for
everyday life, it's really fordisplay, it's for guests, it's
for performance, it's for frontstage.
The Goffman theory of frontstage, back stage is totally a
front stage space where you'reshowing your absolute best.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
I, you know, have memories of visiting various you
know whether it's an auntie orwhoever is home right throughout
my life and really thinkingabout as you're saying.
Right, this room is is a frontstage piece.
It's oftentimes one of thesefirst rooms that you come across
, but it's not necessarily livedin right.
There are many attributes.
(07:50):
As you said, it holds thepictures of our past.
You know some of maybe thefamily's best achievements, the
fine china, things like this, asyou said, what do you think
these sort of physicalattributes of the front room you
know display about us as apeople?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Oh man, I love that question.
What you're doing is, I think,so critical, just to say,
because you're asking questionsthat don't typically get asked,
and I think that comes from yourexperience and your lens too,
and that it's just like the waythat you're asking questions is
also a way to make people feelseen.
So I'm totally feeling them.
(08:29):
Um, I think that they reallyspeak to our deep, deep sense of
pride.
You know, we have a deep desireto honor our lineage and our
dignity and our visibility.
But Caribbean's are very, alsobig on decorum.
If you are Jamaican, I know,and I don't know there are
(08:50):
plenty of other Caribbeanislands that do that.
But decency, you know, is a bigthing.
You know, how are you showingup?
What have you achieved sinceyou've been here?
It's aspirational.
It reflects who we want to beseen as, not just who we are,
and I think sometimes people arelike there's a fakeness to that
(09:11):
, but I disagree.
I think it's aspirational, butit also reveals how we've
internalized colonialrespectability for sure.
So we curate ourselves throughspace.
I totally believe that, and wemade beauty and order out of the
constraint that we inherited,and I think that that's what it
(09:33):
says about us.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
I fully agree with that because I think, you know,
in some sense it would be simplefor us to be like, oh, we do
these things because of Britishcolonialism, right, and in part
is it true, yes, right, but, asyou're saying, right, we've made
beauty, we've upheld histories,that, and our struggles and our
journeys, in a lot of ways thatyou know are not necessarily at
(09:56):
the front of the stage, so tospeak.
Right, all of these journeysand migrations and achievements
of Caribbean people really getheld in this front room and I
think, on one hand, a reallybeautiful way.
Right, that there historicallyhasn't been made other space for
and that sort of like this,this holding of memories.
(10:19):
And you know the way that thefront room tells a story,
because, for anybody again, whohas never been in a front room,
there are, you know, the awardsthat you know people have won in
families.
You know you might see the highschool diplomas or whatever,
right, all of these sort ofachievements get held in this
front room in a very particularway and it definitely tells a
(10:41):
family story.
But I think, as we had sort ofalluded to previously, it can
sometimes feel cold or likemuseum, like, right, it's not
necessarily the place whereyou're sitting down and just
watching Netflix with yourfamily in like a warm and cozy
environment, right, it is verymuch, so a little bit sterile,
if I may add.
(11:02):
Right Like it's supposed to bekept pristine, I'll put it that
way.
Right, I find that veryinteresting because we hold a
lot of things like that in ourhistories, right, so it's not
just showcased through the frontroom, but, you know, every
Caribbean family has that auntor that grandmother that you
know safeguards all of these olddocuments and things, right, I
(11:25):
think sometimes we joke and talkabout the birth certificate or
certificate being held underpeople's beds, right, but there
are people who keep the programsfor funerals and all of these
things, right, and so in a lotof ways, our identity is shaped
around this holding of ourlegacies and of our histories.
(11:46):
How do you understand this sortof like juxtaposition between
the preservation of our memoriesand our lineage, with this kind
of like inaccessibility, orlike stasis or sterile-ness, you
know, of the environment thatcan be the front room?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
sterile-ness.
You know of the environmentthat can be the front room.
I just want to say everythingthat you mentioned before is
critical of what's in there.
Right, it really depends, Ithink, what level and migration
you are, and the front room isreally a response to.
It's not always possible tohave your entire home be that
way, but you are able to havecarve out this corner for
yourself.
(12:26):
You're able to carve out thisplace and, I think, depending on
where you migrated MichaelMcMillan has written extensively
about this for the Britishdiasporic population but I think
it is a lot of similarities butthere are a lot of differences
for America and for Canada.
I know I have, like most people,my family went to all three
(12:48):
places.
So I feel that I can really seesort of the difference,
especially with my cousins.
We kind of call ourselves likethe British cousins, the
Canadian cousins, the Americancousins.
How did we all kind of turn outand what was the differences in
sort of that space?
So it was interesting to thinkabout it in that way.
But you know what are thecommon things that are in there?
(13:09):
You've got the fake flowers,the doilies, the glass animal of
some type, the china, thepicture of Jesus, you know a lot
of staples are there and Ithink that your question about
the juxtaposition betweenpreservation, memory and stasis,
I feel that as I did theresearch, I kind of noticed the
(13:31):
longer that a person was in theUnited States, the more Jamaican
memorabilia made its way intothat space and how it sort of
bled out into the corners ofdifferent places of the home.
There were lots of sort ofdifferent pieces of memorabilia.
(13:52):
So when I think aboutespecially first generation,
some of these items can sort ofbe flattened into this piece of
memory.
You've got quotes.
Jamaican proverbs are reallybig to have around your home.
In my house they've got thecoasters.
Of course you cannot put even aplastic bottle down without a
coaster.
You know you have your placemap, a lot of things that are
(14:15):
focused around preservation offurniture and things that are
focused around remembering whereI'm from.
Maps of Jamaica are reallyreally big pieces of this, and
so there is a really powerfultension between preservation of
memory and the stasis that youmentioned, because the front
(14:35):
room really holds memory in itshighest form and it's an archive
really.
It's also inaccessible, as youmentioned.
You can't touch it, you can'tfully live in it, but I think
that there's a very Americanizedor Westernized of course we're
(14:56):
a part of that tradition too butthis idea that you can't live
in something if you're not usingit a certain way and I push
back against that because I dofeel like we're fully living in
it.
Sunday morning or Saturdaymorning, if you grew up
Adventist, there is like adifferent way of accessing that
(15:16):
space.
That's where the pastor couldsit, that's where you know you
work through a lot of thingswith visiting family members or
visiting people.
I remember a couple of familymeetings being held in there and
that being a place where yourecognized that you were at your
(15:37):
highest self in that space.
And for me it was veryaspirational to sit in that room
and to think of what I could be.
Very aspirational, um, to sitin that room and to think of
what I could be no-transcript.
I think a lot of my work is likelooking at that liminal space
and how the front room reallyperfectly captures that.
(16:00):
And for us that are firstgeneration or post-migrant
generation children, this roomreally becomes something that we
inherit symbolically before weunderstand it, practically Like
that juxtaposition.
I wish I had even more to sayabout that, but I think, like
(16:24):
you've really cracked at thecrux of what I am so interested
in is finding what that is, andI think aspiration is the
beginning of the answer to thatquestion and I hope to continue
answering that as time goes on.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
I would certainly agree with that, though I think
you know you're mapping usthrough your own family, right,
the ways that we have sincemigration to the global north,
preservation of our memoriesreally interesting, because it
(16:58):
then becomes, you know, a placeof not forgetting where we came
from as well, right, but in that, as you're saying, right, I
think it definitely extends outto other parts of the Caribbean.
But, speaking as Jamaicans, welove manas, we love to say we
have manas and we have, we havebrought up, see, manas and all
(17:19):
of these things.
So it does also become thatplace where it's like, oh, like
some big guests, some big peopleare coming to the house, let us
, you know, usher them into thisroom, which is always clean, by
the way, like that is the nextthing, it's pristine in its most
epitome of forms, right.
But I think the other pointthat you know you're definitely
(17:40):
getting to through thisunderstanding of who we are and
when we've migrated, I find veryinteresting, because I've at
least seen it change a littlebit, right, like the frequency
by which I've seen front roomsbe in Caribbean households,
especially for those who aremaybe second, third, you know,
et cetera, generation becomesvery interesting because it
(18:02):
starts to wean off a little bit.
And so, you know, as we arebecoming the new adults, as I've
been trying to remember right,the front room has started to
fade a little bit as part of ourculture.
Why do you think that is, youknow, and I'm sure there's a
(18:24):
whole colossal, you know sort ofreasons to really think through
that.
I'm sure it's not just onething, but I think, you know,
are the things like wealthbuilding challenges, you know,
diaspora, migration, technology,like is it because you know we
can hold some of our, you know,most prideful and and beautiful
moments on instagram as opposedto having the front room right?
(18:44):
Like, how do you think all ofthese different things have
impacted the importance of thefront room?
And you know sort of evolvingdefinitions of caribbean
domestic?
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Wow, I love that you really really started touching
on the answer as well, like withthe way you even asked the
question.
I think that you really hit thenail on the head.
Like the front room is fadingbecause the conditions that
produced it are not intactanymore.
(19:16):
It was never just a space, itwas a performance.
It was a performance ofaspiration, performance of
respectability, of control, andit emerged specifically in
response to certain pressuresthat were really specific to a
time, I think Colonialsurveillance, class mobility,
(19:40):
diaspora, dislocation, like thedesire to be seen as proper, as
high class, as good in the eyesof a world.
That really doubts yourlegitimacy, unfortunately.
And those pressures are notgone by any means, but they've
shifted, and so our location ofresponding to those are
(20:02):
beginning to shift as well.
Um, migration patterns havechanged.
Homes are a lot smaller thanthey used to be in a lot of
places.
So what?
What we can afford especially,um, my generation, millennial
generation what we can afford isa lot different.
Your home life is also moretransient.
You know it's more likely thatyou'll move.
(20:25):
You're in an apartment, you'llgo somewhere else, and so when
you're looking for an apartment,you're not necessarily thinking
about that space, and the spaceis still there, but it's
sometimes more compressed.
I know I still have it, butit's compressed and it's more
spread out throughout the home.
And I think that the financialprecarity that we're
(20:47):
experiencing right now not thatthe generations before us did
not experience that samefinancial precarity, but we're
experiencing it here in theUnited States specifically in a
different way that prioritizesfunction over some of that
formality at times in certainways, and so I think, with a
(21:08):
hybrid or diasporic post-migrantidentities, the performance of
like a singular cultural code,like the careful curation of a
front room, sometimes it feelsless necessary and sometimes it
feels impossible and Idefinitely miss it.
(21:30):
I think that even the way thathomes are shaped now makes it
really hard to have that sort oftransition space that you're so
used to.
And technology has also reallytransformed hugely our
relationship to display andaudience, and the curation of
(21:51):
the front room has moved in alot of ways from physical to
digital interface, has moved ina lot of ways from physical to
digital interface, and right nowI'm looking at a lot of that
digital space as sort of aprimary frontier or terrain,
especially for post-migrantgenerations.
I feel that the internet raisedme in a lot of ways.
Of course, my parents aremostly responsible, but it took
(22:14):
a lot of the internet toreaffirm my Jamaican-ness.
I did not receive that fromJamaica as an island.
In fact, I received a lot ofpushback of that's not my
identity, you're not Jamaican,you're American.
And I think that disconnect isreally palpable for a lot of us.
And so the curation has movedfrom you know, that physical
(22:39):
space to that digital space.
Okay, we have Instagram, we havethat aesthetic feel that we're
looking for, we have the newmodes of cultural performance,
we've got legibility, we havethe urge to display taste and
beauty and status.
We still have that.
That has not disappeared.
It's just migrated to adifferent location.
(23:00):
And I think the front roomitself as it existed, as it was
born, it's not really totallygone and I think what we're
seeing now, especially as thefront room was one of the very
few spaces that really have bigdiasporic roots, it's something
(23:20):
that has come heavily frommigrated people, and what we're
seeing right now, I think, ismore of a reclaiming than making
a direct replica.
Younger generations arereinterpreting the textures, the
codes, the emotional weight.
They might not create the exactsame lace doilies Although I
(23:41):
have a lace doily, I'm sorry.
Like I have one.
I'm not getting rid of it, Ithink it rocks.
You know I'm not coveringmyself on plastic but I still
have that preservation mindsetand I am really proud of that.
You know what?
I'm just going to drop, thislittle tiny thing about myself.
A lot of Jamaicans, a lot of us.
(24:02):
You tell me right now if inyour circle who has the cleanest
shoes, it's you, the Jamaicans.
We have the cleanest.
I mean, that's debatable, butwe have like our things are kept
for so long.
I'm so pleased with my backpackfrom sixth grade.
It looks like it could havebeen bought yesterday.
(24:23):
You know, and some of that is,you know, probably trauma
response, but I think a lot ofit is the fact that we are
raised to be archivists.
We really are Like, I like tosee that positive part of it,
not because the other side isnot there, trust, I like to see
that positive part of it, notbecause the other side is not
there.
Trust me, I have a lot ofcritique about it, but we are
shown a lot of the negativityabout our culture and I think
(24:45):
it's great to look at it througha different lens.
And so we're still engaging inthe cultural memory work.
We're still doing archivalprojects.
We're still doing with ourinterior design choices, like we
may not be doing the Damascuswallpaper anymore, but there's
still storytelling, there'sstill art practice, and like
it's more of a metaphor in a lotof spaces than it is a physical
(25:09):
room, but the care, theinheritance, the layered
belonging that's sort ofreconfigured for a new context,
it's still there the layeredbelonging that's sort of
reconfigured for a new context,it's still there.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
You said so much that I was like I could cut you off
and we could take thisconversation into so many
different realms.
Because, as we're talking aboutshoes, I was like, yes, I know
a couple of people, well, thatwill put their Clarks in the
freezer and have their specialtoothbrush.
You know all of these things.
But also, as you're talking andI'm like, I'm sitting in my
apartment and I'm like, okay, Idon't actually have a front room
because you know, I have asingle girl's apartment, right,
(25:44):
so it's not enough rooms here tohave my own front room.
But I definitely do have tracesof these front room things,
right, the heirlooms, thecultural motifs.
I have a thing of, you know, aJamaican proverb on my fridge,
right, like all of these thingswould have maybe historically
been, you know, configured inone place for different
(26:05):
generations.
But also to understand thatthere is always that home, back
home, you know, on the islandsthat we can all go to, where the
front room can be definitelykept and pristine, you know, of
our parents' generation.
There is that sort ofconfiguration of you know, this
will always be our home in asense, right, where the front
(26:27):
room can exist for generations,for several years, whereas, you
know, as we are moving throughlife and understanding our own
challenges, and, you know, thefront room is there oftentimes,
hopefully, for a lot of folks togo back to.
But the ways that we do thatfor ourselves is definitely very
interesting In a lot of ways.
I think what you were sayingabout preservation, in terms of
(26:49):
how we archive ourselves andkeep our histories alive, it is
also a sign of our, you know,tendency of respectability in
several ways, which I think,again, definitely comes down
through that, you know, britishimperialness and its presence on
our lives and especially how wehave to perform as Black people
, oftentimes as well.
But I think, as you said, right, it's a complicated
(27:12):
juxtaposition between being like, ok, you know, it's so terrible
that we've, you know, done thisthing because of British
imperialism, but also there isbeauty in the ways that we've
adapted it.
So I definitely, you know, echothose sentiments and really
agree.
I'm appreciative for you tosort of bring that to light for
us, right, it's not just eitheror.
(27:34):
In a lot of ways, I think youknow this also brings me to my
favorite question of the show.
I oftentimes am, you know,always thinking through the ways
that we model and highlightthese aspects of who we are in
popular culture.
Right, what are some of yourfavorite examples of you know
(28:03):
seeing whether you know be theCaribbean front room in movies
or in shows and stuff like that,or just you know overall ways
that you've seen Caribbeandomesticity really being brought
to life through popular culture?
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Oh my goodness, yes, when I was thinking about this I
was walking down memory lanebecause I grew up on Saturday
nights watching Oliver with myparents.
If you know, you know, okay, ifyou don't know.
So the sets on those reallystick in my mind, especially the
airport scenes and howinteresting people were sort of
(28:35):
navigating the space and how itwas really created by the
experience.
And so, oh my goodness, I thinka huge part of my humor, like
my interests, are really formedaround those memories.
But if you guys are notfamiliar with Van Lee Burke,
he's a British Jamaicanphotographer and he does Black
British interiors, a BritishJamaican photographer, and he
(29:00):
does Black British interiors,especially with people who are
migrating, and I absolutely lovethe photos that he has because
it's not just a space, it's likea documentation of taste and of
migration, of aspiration, asI've mentioned several times.
And if you're also familiarwith Miss Lou Louise Bennett
poetry, it makes things feelalive and intimate at the same
(29:23):
time.
I really love her work.
It kind of really understandslike the language around things
and parts of that sameperformance.
And in popular culture wereally can see traces of the
front room in everything I feelyou know um old dance hall album
(29:45):
covers, old reggae album covers.
In the way that certain filmsframe direct domestic interiors,
um, there's like a ceremonialstillness to it and you know
what?
Um, if you've ever watchedreality tv with your two-way
grandma, if you haven't, Ihighly recommend trying it.
(30:05):
It's great.
Um, my grandma, I miss herterribly.
She's gone, but I rememberwe're constantly her saying they
couldn't have cleaned up theirhouse like for tv and those
kinds of things.
And so I think, like when I lookat the way homes are portrayed
in the media here versus thatpristineness that has remained
(30:27):
in Jamaican media, and itdoesn't matter how small your
home is, it doesn't matter whatkind of status you have with
money I think that's somethingthat I've always appreciated.
I have been freshly out of gradschool, so the come up has been
a build for a lot of times andyou lived in many different
spaces based off of what you canafford.
(30:48):
But that's never an excuse tohave your room dirty.
That's never an excuse to havesome of those things changing.
So I think that's reallyreflected, even still, in
popular culture.
And so the descriptions of thegood room, this untouched, over
decorated space that's reservedfor guests, it's like full of
(31:08):
meaning and I think it's reallyincredible.
There are a lot of people thatlayer that choreography with
domestic life, but I also thinkwhat's really woven in with it.
Alexandria is like this idea ofwork.
Okay, trigger warning for theJamaicans.
How many of us had to learnHeights of Great Men Reaching
(31:30):
Kept or Not Attained by SuddenFlight?
Okay.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Carry on.
I'm not even gonna go ahead,I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
You know that.
You learned that before youlearned to read.
Okay, but they, while theircompanions slept, come on,
finish it with me for toilingupward in the night, okay.
So, like I remember my dadteaching me that very early, and
I think like one of my pridepoints of being Jamaican is how
(32:01):
tough I am when it comes to workethic.
And people might say, well,what does that have to do with
design and architecture?
It has everything to do with it.
All of these things are woventogether.
It's impossible to divorce them.
And there are, like this idea ofnot just showing respectability
, because part of what's bakedinto respectability is work
(32:24):
ethic.
You cannot be respectable ifyou are lazy or you know not
doing work.
It's to show off the work andwhat you have done as well.
And so I think I'm likestraying from your question a
little bit, but, um, you knowthere are lots of references um
photography, and so I've uh beencapturing a lot of it with film
(32:48):
, which I love, um super 8, 35millimeter, 120 millimeter, and
I uh polaroid sometimes, becauseI think that the colors, the
images, those things are stillwithin popular culture.
But so I mentioned reggae, Imentioned dance hall albums, I
mentioned, like old comedy playswe love a good play.
(33:12):
I think even church is a hugepart of that weaving in, of
bringing the church inside ofyour home in some way and having
that reflected, that mirroredrelationship, the conversation
between church and homehappening.
But also there's Instagram.
For those of us that are morelike in today.
(33:32):
We look at those curated spaces.
There's the television today asfar as like shows that we watch
spaces.
There's the television today asfar as like shows that we watch
.
I'm not really plugged into theTV scene in Jamaica right now.
Like what shows are on, like Ishould probably check it out.
But fashion editorials, theecho, the texture we see that
(33:53):
everywhere.
And I just have like a messageof love for my Caribbean people
right now that I have to sharethe things that are used from us
have permeated the entire worldand the things that we have
brought to culture.
You know how Jamaicans say youknow like the things that we
(34:14):
have are everywhere.
But tell them why you know likethe things that we have are
everywhere and you can feel, andshould feel, a sense of pride
at how much that's permeatedculture, to the fact where I
can't even think for yourquestion, like.
Is this Caribbean, is it not?
It's permeated so many spaces.
So I think that I went off therails a bit like my answer.
(34:37):
So I think that I went off therails a bit with my answer, but
you can look up Olive Senior,andrew Levy.
You know the energy of thehousehold.
A lot of Caribbean writers usethat.
Jamaica, kincaid a lot of thesefaces and these incredible
writers.
I'm sure I'm forgetting many,but, as I mentioned, a lot of
(34:59):
that British input, because thatwas Wadsworth Longfellow, that
poem that we all had to learn,and those different things.
A lot of those are domesticitythat's mirrored in pop culture
or in everyday life or in thethings that even we had to learn
from the media.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
You took me down several memory routes of memory
lane a while ago, right, but Ido.
I do definitely agree with whatyou said in terms of not only
the wealth of Caribbeaninfluence in the world, but also
the you know sort of myriadways you can see this, whether
it is through writing, throughphotography, through plays,
(35:37):
right, so I will be sure to linka lot of these books and
similar media on our StrictlyFacts syllabus for all of those
who are wanting to check outmore.
I definitely want to tie ourconversation together, because I
started with this point onarchitecture, right, and I think
oftentimes when people hear theword architecture, they're not
(36:01):
immediately going to what we'vespoken about today.
Right, they're thinking abouthow buildings are built and
bridges and all of these thingsthat I'm not heavily versed in,
right, all that to be said, thefront room, you know what we've
spoken about in terms ofCaribbean domesticity and home
life.
Like we are the architects ofnot just the physical space but
(36:25):
of these cultural spaces, right,especially when you consider
the systemic barriers that havebeen and impacted our lives.
Right, not only have we built alot of these things and haven't
systemically gotten credit forthem, or historically gotten
credit for them, rather.
But we've found ways to do thatfor our own selves, within our
own homes, within these privatespaces, within church, et cetera
(36:48):
, right Places that we can notonly find comfort and solace in,
right, but be proud of andpreserve for ourselves.
Right, but be proud of andpreserve for ourselves.
And so how do you, you know,think this interpretation of
architecture right?
Not of the people who arebuilding the bridges and the
buildings and stuff, but, youknow, creating this home life
(37:11):
for us.
How does this interpretationshed new light on what we
generally think of as Caribbeanarchitecture?
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Wow, what a beautiful question.
These questions are amazing,like you, should be like a
research question, like aconsultant.
These are quite good, I think,man.
It shows us that Caribbeanarchitecture is expansive, and I
feel this way about allarchitecture.
I think a lot of times, likeyou know, in my particular field
in architecture, it's solimited to this specific
(37:50):
definition and my work hasthought about how to expand that
past what, like some, of themore purest or formal way of
looking at things as anarchitecture is walls and
ceiling and floor, just to belike super literal.
But a lot of us not just me byany means are looking at sort of
(38:12):
the behavioral aspect, thathuman aspect in Caribbean
architecture.
To get to your question is it'snot just about verandas,
jealousy, windows, passiveventilation although I'm very
interested in all of that and alot of that really, really
matters, especially when wethink about what we deal with
with climate, which is veryimportant, but it's also about
(38:35):
ritual, it's also about symbol,it's also about coded space, and
so the front room is a form ofspatial storytelling.
It's architecture.
To me it's not just in itsmaterials but in its intention,
and our mothers and grandmothersand grandfathers they were
(38:59):
practicing design andarchitecture without some of
these labels that we use and Ithink because of that it gets to
be dismissed.
But the interior design, thecuration of home, the way of
fighting not even fighting back,but joining in with climate to
protect homes, and things likethat are very Caribbean.
(39:22):
You know, when we think aboutsustainability, even Caribbeans
are at the front lines of theresponse to a lot of those
things.
And because they don't maybecarry the same names, like that,
nomenclature is not there.
In the same way, I think it canbe dismissed.
And so arranging space aroundvisibility, respect, aspiration,
(39:46):
memory it's not just decorating, it's curating meaning, it's
staging, belonging, it'sconstructing a very specific
type of legibility that's meantto make your children and your
grandchildren feel this level ofinclusion within a colonial and
diasporic framework.
Like that is architecture to me, and I very much feel strongly
(40:11):
about that, and I think it'sreally important if you are a
Caribbean person, it's reallyimportant if you are a Caribbean
person.
I think like it's important toreframe your narrative, if you
don't already have this, of thethings that I have been doing.
Even if they don't have thesame name, they can still fit
(40:35):
into the certain framework orthey can be expansive, even
beyond it.
We have been contributing to alot of these different design
conversations in huge ways, andso I do think a lot about those
specific things.
You know the filigree, thespecific types of windows, the
specific types of, you know,material culture that we have
within architecture and thehistory with it.
But I also feel that the frontroom really disrupts the idea
(41:00):
that architecture is only abouta specific type of
interpretation and is only aboutprofessional involvement.
I think it really reinforces usto think about architectural
authorship, which I think isreally important.
Who gets to be called adesigner?
Who is seen as someone who'sshaping space?
(41:22):
And my research for Goody, Ispecifically thought about
mothers and how mothers arereally responsible for showing
us specifically me, thatarchitecture and design can be
emotional, it can be symbolic,it can be deeply domestic and
it's not just the materials thatyou might think.
You know concrete, timber, eventhough those are incredibly
(41:45):
important, but it's also lacerunners, you know plastic
flowers, souvenir figurines,moral maxims that we have and
the silence that we use tocreate.
All these different things arematerials and I have sometimes
felt like out of place withinsome of the architectural
(42:07):
conversations, but that's okay,and if you feel out of place as
a Caribbean in certainconversations.
Just know that that's yourinvitation to expand it and
that's how I have taken it.
And I think that ourunderstanding of how space
performs in Caribbean life, howarchitecture has become a form
of social choreography, iscritical.
(42:28):
The threshold, the guests, thegaze, you know the active
display, is all a part ofspatial ritual.
And the front room is not justa room, it's a spatial
philosophy and it teaches usthat caribbean architecture
includes the structural but italso moves beyond it.
(42:50):
And that's not just caribbeanarchitecture, that's many, many,
many cultures.
It's cultural, it's psychic,it's intergenerational.
I hope that responds to thequestion.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
I very much so think.
So I think you know the way thatyou've outlined it for us.
I find not only like deeplymoving, especially as somebody
who is in these higher ed spacesright, and sometimes doing
things that are out of norm ortradition right, but also, again
(43:27):
, wanting to ensure that I amwho I am and I bring who I am to
the fore when I'm in certainspaces.
So I hope, as you said, right,that those who you know may be
waiting through some of thesechallenges or, you know,
negotiations, continue to bringthemselves to the four.
I also find deeply what you saidin terms of you know how our
(43:51):
foremothers and forefathers havealways been architects, right,
just not only moving, but trulylike we've continued to do this
for generations.
So they are truly the pilots ofyou know cultures in a lot of
our culture in a lot of ways,and so I don't want to take too
much of the ending of ourepisode away from what you
beautifully just put for us.
(44:13):
So I will bring us to a closeand say, dr Scott, I am
tremendously appreciative foryou joining me on the show.
It's always, I think,especially a joy for me to have
a fellow Yadi on the podcast andidentify with a lot of what
we're saying in some of theseintricate ways, although, as we
said, right, a lot of this candefinitely parallel and has
(44:34):
definitely paralleled in otherparts of the region, parallel
and has definitely paralleled inother parts of the region, and
so I am grateful to have youjoin us and, you know, be a new
part of our Strictly Factsfamily to our listeners.
you know, big up on ourselves, Ihope you know.
This was again a reallythought-provoking conversation
and one that forced you to thinka little bit about maybe your
own front rooms growing up andhow you hope to maybe even bring
(44:58):
the front room into your livesnow, in nuanced ways, of course,
as we've discussed.
So with that, I again hope youall enjoyed the episode.
Until next time, lookle more.
Thanks for tuning in toStrictly Facts.
Visit strictlyfactspodcastcomfor more information from each
episode.
Follow us at Strictlyfaxpod onInstagram and Facebook and at
(45:22):
strictlyfaxpd on Twitter.
Welcome to Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean
history and culture, hosted byme, alexandria Miller.
Strictly Facts teaches thehistory, politics and activism
of the Caribbean and connectsthese themes to contemporary
music and popular culture.
Strictly Facts family hello,hello on a depon.
(00:22):
How are you doing All thethings right?
It is such a joy to know youall are enjoying the episodes
that we've been putting out thisyear.
It really brings joy to myheart to get some of your
messages.
As always, my name is AlexandriaMiller, your host of Strictly
Facts, a guide to Caribbeanhistory and culture, back again
with what I hope is anotherthought-provoking episode for
(00:43):
you all today.
For me, really, this one isinteresting because I emailed
our guest today, which I won't,you know, get into too much.
You all wouldn't know some ofthis info from the back end, but
I emailed our guest todaythinking that we would talk
about one thing and we ended updeciding on having a whole
different conversation, stilltangential, still on topic right
(01:05):
, but not exactly what I hopedfor, which I think you know it's
amazing.
So definitely brings a newelement to what I was initially
considering.
So I'm really grateful to haveher.
But before I introduce her, Iwant to, you know, shoot some
questions to you all to get youthinking about our episode today
.
And so, when you hear the termCaribbean architecture, what
(01:28):
comes to mind?
Specifically, what comes tomind when you think of
architecture and design ofCaribbean homes?
What do you think of?
Is it the shape, the color youknow that we usually repaint and
put up new curtains during theholidays or is it the rooms
themselves and how they aredesigned?
Our guest today has worked onprojects specifically on the
(01:51):
latter, and so first let meintroduce Dr Stacey Scott to the
show.
Dr Scott is a designer,researcher and educator
currently serving as anassistant professor at the
University of Virginia School ofArchitecture.
And so, as I said, dr Scott,welcome.
So much.
Tell us a little bit aboutyourself, your connection to the
region where you call home andwhat inspired your interest in
(02:13):
Caribbean architecture anddesign.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Thank you so much.
This is incredible.
I think it's awesome whatyou're doing.
Honored to be on this show, Iclaim Jamaica.
Okay, that's my country, that'smy motherland, I love talking
about Jamaica, so I can't waitto dive into it.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
And what inspired your interest in Caribbean
architecture and design you?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
know, right now the phrase mini search is kind of
taking off and I'm first gen orlike a post-migrant era of
Jamaican and I think for a lotof us there's this feeling of
displacement that we just haveto go after and I felt that same
interest in resolving thatdisplacement.
(03:00):
I don't know if I've dug thehole deeper but I've learned so
much along the way, it's beenworth it.
And my connection to theCaribbean is, you know, it's
personal and it's academic butit's sort of rooted in like the
lived experiences that I've seenand how limited that
information is in record and howI can resolve that in my
(03:22):
personal niche of interest.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
You know that's definitely the topic of our
conversation today, of sorts.
Right, I gave our listeners abit of a teaser.
When it comes to thinking about, you know Caribbean homes and
home life and you know thethings that make up Caribbean
homes.
Some would call that, you knowCaribbean domesticity, and I
(03:46):
know that's a term you use inyour research, and so, before we
dive into the specific topicthat we're talking about today
in terms of the actual home,could you define sort of for us
what you consider Caribbeandomesticity and how you feel
like it shapes who we are as aregion, as a culture, and you
know some of the cultural andimperial even influences that
have shaped our home lives?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Definitely I love that question so much.
To me, caribbean domesticityit's like a, it's a language,
it's care, it's memory, it'sstructural, it's a scent, it's
like the order, the pattern andthe shapes that emerge, and like
your understanding of home ingeneral.
(04:29):
It's how the rituals, sort of,are baked into your environment.
It's the Sunday best you know,the plastic covered furniture.
It's how certain changes thatare spatial become expressions
of love and dignity andaspiration and care.
(04:50):
And yeah, you're absolutelyright, it does carry a lot of
traces of empire, post-colonialsort of inheritance with it,
some positive, but a lot of itpretty complex and nuanced, a
lot of imposition.
But I think that what's reallygreat about Caribbean
(05:11):
architecture and Caribbeandomesticity is the way that we
reinterpret even that, even thethings that weren't imposed, and
the formality that was imposedand how we've made it woven into
our own cultural fabric and howwe've made that our own.
I think that's like one of myabsolute favorite things about
the Caribbean and domesticity ingeneral.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
You mentioned the sofa with the plastic covering
on it right, which is preciselypart of our conversation today.
Parts of your research havebeen exploring the front room as
part of, you know, caribbeandomesticity and the role that
the front room plays in terms ofwho we are, how we, even you
(05:54):
know, connect ourselves to thepast, how we keep things alive
and in memory in a lot of ways.
And so, before we dive too muchinto the front room and you
know, as you said, rememberingeven just you know you can't
even go in there or theuncomfortability of that couch,
for those who may be unfamiliarwith what exactly a front room
(06:17):
is, could you describe a littlebit about what it looks like,
the physical attributes you knowof a front room and what
distinguishes it really fromother rooms in Caribbean
households?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I'm happy to do that.
So the front room is the mostcurated, most formal space in a
Caribbean home and it's wherethe good furniture lives.
It's where you know the bestchina is displayed.
It's sort of a mix of memoryand aspiration placed in one
room.
(06:48):
There's photographs, there'slace, doilies, it's where the
family's sort of best andhighlight reel of, you know,
migration and also, like memoryof the past, a connection to for
me I will talk about Jamaicawhere it lives, and it's
(07:08):
distinct from the rest of thehouse because it's not for
everyday life, it's really fordisplay, it's for guests, it's
for performance, it's for frontstage.
The Goffman theory of frontstage, back stage is totally a
front stage space where you'reshowing your absolute best.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
I, you know, have memories of visiting various you
know whether it's an auntie orwhoever is home right throughout
my life and really thinkingabout as you're saying.
Right, this room is is a frontstage piece.
It's oftentimes one of thesefirst rooms that you come across
, but it's not necessarily livedin right.
There are many attributes.
(07:50):
As you said, it holds thepictures of our past.
You know some of maybe thefamily's best achievements, the
fine china, things like this, asyou said, what do you think
these sort of physicalattributes of the front room you
know display about us as apeople?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Oh man, I love that question.
What you're doing is, I think,so critical, just to say,
because you're asking questionsthat don't typically get asked,
and I think that comes from yourexperience and your lens too,
and that it's just like the waythat you're asking questions is
also a way to make people feelseen.
So I'm totally feeling them.
(08:29):
Um, I think that they reallyspeak to our deep, deep sense of
pride.
You know, we have a deep desireto honor our lineage and our
dignity and our visibility.
But Caribbean's are very, alsobig on decorum.
If you are Jamaican, I know,and I don't know there are
(08:50):
plenty of other Caribbeanislands that do that.
But decency, you know, is a bigthing.
You know, how are you showingup?
What have you achieved sinceyou've been here?
It's aspirational.
It reflects who we want to beseen as, not just who we are,
and I think sometimes people arelike there's a fakeness to that
(09:11):
, but I disagree.
I think it's aspirational, butit also reveals how we've
internalized colonialrespectability for sure.
So we curate ourselves throughspace.
I totally believe that, and wemade beauty and order out of the
constraint that we inherited,and I think that that's what it
(09:33):
says about us.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
I fully agree with that because I think, you know,
in some sense it would be simplefor us to be like, oh, we do
these things because of Britishcolonialism, right, and in part
is it true, yes, right, but, asyou're saying, right, we've made
beauty, we've upheld histories,that, and our struggles and our
journeys, in a lot of ways thatyou know are not necessarily at
(09:56):
the front of the stage, so tospeak.
Right, all of these journeysand migrations and achievements
of Caribbean people really getheld in this front room and I
think, on one hand, a reallybeautiful way.
Right, that there historicallyhasn't been made other space for
and that sort of like this,this holding of memories.
(10:19):
And you know the way that thefront room tells a story,
because, for anybody again, whohas never been in a front room,
there are, you know, the awardsthat you know people have won in
families.
You know you might see the highschool diplomas or whatever,
right, all of these sort ofachievements get held in this
front room in a very particularway and it definitely tells a
(10:41):
family story.
But I think, as we had sort ofalluded to previously, it can
sometimes feel cold or likemuseum, like, right, it's not
necessarily the place whereyou're sitting down and just
watching Netflix with yourfamily in like a warm and cozy
environment, right, it is verymuch, so a little bit sterile,
if I may add.
(11:02):
Right Like it's supposed to bekept pristine, I'll put it that
way.
Right, I find that veryinteresting because we hold a
lot of things like that in ourhistories, right, so it's not
just showcased through the frontroom, but, you know, every
Caribbean family has that auntor that grandmother that you
know safeguards all of these olddocuments and things, right, I
(11:25):
think sometimes we joke and talkabout the birth certificate or
certificate being held underpeople's beds, right, but there
are people who keep the programsfor funerals and all of these
things, right, and so in a lotof ways, our identity is shaped
around this holding of ourlegacies and of our histories.
(11:46):
How do you understand this sortof like juxtaposition between
the preservation of our memoriesand our lineage, with this kind
of like inaccessibility, orlike stasis or sterile-ness, you
know, of the environment thatcan be the front room?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
sterile-ness.
You know of the environmentthat can be the front room.
I just want to say everythingthat you mentioned before is
critical of what's in there.
Right, it really depends, Ithink, what level and migration
you are, and the front room isreally a response to.
It's not always possible tohave your entire home be that
way, but you are able to havecarve out this corner for
yourself.
(12:26):
You're able to carve out thisplace and, I think, depending on
where you migrated MichaelMcMillan has written extensively
about this for the Britishdiasporic population but I think
it is a lot of similarities butthere are a lot of differences
for America and for Canada.
I know I have, like most people,my family went to all three
(12:48):
places.
So I feel that I can really seesort of the difference,
especially with my cousins.
We kind of call ourselves likethe British cousins, the
Canadian cousins, the Americancousins.
How did we all kind of turn outand what was the differences in
sort of that space?
So it was interesting to thinkabout it in that way.
But you know what are thecommon things that are in there?
(13:09):
You've got the fake flowers,the doilies, the glass animal of
some type, the china, thepicture of Jesus, you know a lot
of staples are there and Ithink that your question about
the juxtaposition betweenpreservation, memory and stasis,
I feel that as I did theresearch, I kind of noticed the
(13:31):
longer that a person was in theUnited States, the more Jamaican
memorabilia made its way intothat space and how it sort of
bled out into the corners ofdifferent places of the home.
There were lots of sort ofdifferent pieces of memorabilia.
(13:52):
So when I think aboutespecially first generation,
some of these items can sort ofbe flattened into this piece of
memory.
You've got quotes.
Jamaican proverbs are reallybig to have around your home.
In my house they've got thecoasters.
Of course you cannot put even aplastic bottle down without a
coaster.
You know you have your placemap, a lot of things that are
(14:15):
focused around preservation offurniture and things that are
focused around remembering whereI'm from.
Maps of Jamaica are reallyreally big pieces of this, and
so there is a really powerfultension between preservation of
memory and the stasis that youmentioned, because the front
(14:35):
room really holds memory in itshighest form and it's an archive
really.
It's also inaccessible, as youmentioned.
You can't touch it, you can'tfully live in it, but I think
that there's a very Americanizedor Westernized of course we're
(14:56):
a part of that tradition too butthis idea that you can't live
in something if you're not usingit a certain way and I push
back against that because I dofeel like we're fully living in
it.
Sunday morning or Saturdaymorning, if you grew up
Adventist, there is like adifferent way of accessing that
(15:16):
space.
That's where the pastor couldsit, that's where you know you
work through a lot of thingswith visiting family members or
visiting people.
I remember a couple of familymeetings being held in there and
that being a place where yourecognized that you were at your
(15:37):
highest self in that space.
And for me it was veryaspirational to sit in that room
and to think of what I could be.
Very aspirational, um, to sitin that room and to think of
what I could be no-transcript.
I think a lot of my work is likelooking at that liminal space
and how the front room reallyperfectly captures that.
(16:00):
And for us that are firstgeneration or post-migrant
generation children, this roomreally becomes something that we
inherit symbolically before weunderstand it, practically Like
that juxtaposition.
I wish I had even more to sayabout that, but I think, like
(16:24):
you've really cracked at thecrux of what I am so interested
in is finding what that is, andI think aspiration is the
beginning of the answer to thatquestion and I hope to continue
answering that as time goes on.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
I would certainly agree with that, though I think
you know you're mapping usthrough your own family, right,
the ways that we have sincemigration to the global north,
preservation of our memoriesreally interesting, because it
(16:58):
then becomes, you know, a placeof not forgetting where we came
from as well, right, but in that, as you're saying, right, I
think it definitely extends outto other parts of the Caribbean.
But, speaking as Jamaicans, welove manas, we love to say we
have manas and we have, we havebrought up, see, manas and all
(17:19):
of these things.
So it does also become thatplace where it's like, oh, like
some big guests, some big peopleare coming to the house, let us
, you know, usher them into thisroom, which is always clean, by
the way, like that is the nextthing, it's pristine in its most
epitome of forms, right.
But I think the other pointthat you know you're definitely
(17:40):
getting to through thisunderstanding of who we are and
when we've migrated, I find veryinteresting, because I've at
least seen it change a littlebit, right, like the frequency
by which I've seen front roomsbe in Caribbean households,
especially for those who aremaybe second, third, you know,
et cetera, generation becomesvery interesting because it
(18:02):
starts to wean off a little bit.
And so, you know, as we arebecoming the new adults, as I've
been trying to remember right,the front room has started to
fade a little bit as part of ourculture.
Why do you think that is, youknow, and I'm sure there's a
(18:24):
whole colossal, you know sort ofreasons to really think through
that.
I'm sure it's not just onething, but I think, you know,
are the things like wealthbuilding challenges, you know,
diaspora, migration, technology,like is it because you know we
can hold some of our, you know,most prideful and and beautiful
moments on instagram as opposedto having the front room right?
(18:44):
Like, how do you think all ofthese different things have
impacted the importance of thefront room?
And you know sort of evolvingdefinitions of caribbean
domestic?
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Wow, I love that you really really started touching
on the answer as well, like withthe way you even asked the
question.
I think that you really hit thenail on the head.
Like the front room is fadingbecause the conditions that
produced it are not intactanymore.
(19:16):
It was never just a space, itwas a performance.
It was a performance ofaspiration, performance of
respectability, of control, andit emerged specifically in
response to certain pressuresthat were really specific to a
time, I think Colonialsurveillance, class mobility,
(19:40):
diaspora, dislocation, like thedesire to be seen as proper, as
high class, as good in the eyesof a world.
That really doubts yourlegitimacy, unfortunately.
And those pressures are notgone by any means, but they've
shifted, and so our location ofresponding to those are
(20:02):
beginning to shift as well.
Um, migration patterns havechanged.
Homes are a lot smaller thanthey used to be in a lot of
places.
So what?
What we can afford especially,um, my generation, millennial
generation what we can afford isa lot different.
Your home life is also moretransient.
You know it's more likely thatyou'll move.
(20:25):
You're in an apartment, you'llgo somewhere else, and so when
you're looking for an apartment,you're not necessarily thinking
about that space, and the spaceis still there, but it's
sometimes more compressed.
I know I still have it, butit's compressed and it's more
spread out throughout the home.
And I think that the financialprecarity that we're
(20:47):
experiencing right now not thatthe generations before us did
not experience that samefinancial precarity, but we're
experiencing it here in theUnited States specifically in a
different way that prioritizesfunction over some of that
formality at times in certainways, and so I think, with a
(21:08):
hybrid or diasporic post-migrantidentities, the performance of
like a singular cultural code,like the careful curation of a
front room, sometimes it feelsless necessary and sometimes it
feels impossible and Idefinitely miss it.
(21:30):
I think that even the way thathomes are shaped now makes it
really hard to have that sort oftransition space that you're so
used to.
And technology has also reallytransformed hugely our
relationship to display andaudience, and the curation of
(21:51):
the front room has moved in alot of ways from physical to
digital interface, has moved ina lot of ways from physical to
digital interface, and right nowI'm looking at a lot of that
digital space as sort of aprimary frontier or terrain,
especially for post-migrantgenerations.
I feel that the internet raisedme in a lot of ways.
Of course, my parents aremostly responsible, but it took
(22:14):
a lot of the internet toreaffirm my Jamaican-ness.
I did not receive that fromJamaica as an island.
In fact, I received a lot ofpushback of that's not my
identity, you're not Jamaican,you're American.
And I think that disconnect isreally palpable for a lot of us.
And so the curation has movedfrom you know, that physical
(22:39):
space to that digital space.
Okay, we have Instagram, we havethat aesthetic feel that we're
looking for, we have the newmodes of cultural performance,
we've got legibility, we havethe urge to display taste and
beauty and status.
We still have that.
That has not disappeared.
It's just migrated to adifferent location.
(23:00):
And I think the front roomitself as it existed, as it was
born, it's not really totallygone and I think what we're
seeing now, especially as thefront room was one of the very
few spaces that really have bigdiasporic roots, it's something
(23:20):
that has come heavily frommigrated people, and what we're
seeing right now, I think, ismore of a reclaiming than making
a direct replica.
Younger generations arereinterpreting the textures, the
codes, the emotional weight.
They might not create the exactsame lace doilies Although I
(23:41):
have a lace doily, I'm sorry.
Like I have one.
I'm not getting rid of it, Ithink it rocks.
You know I'm not coveringmyself on plastic but I still
have that preservation mindsetand I am really proud of that.
You know what?
I'm just going to drop, thislittle tiny thing about myself.
A lot of Jamaicans, a lot of us.
(24:02):
You tell me right now if inyour circle who has the cleanest
shoes, it's you, the Jamaicans.
We have the cleanest.
I mean, that's debatable, butwe have like our things are kept
for so long.
I'm so pleased with my backpackfrom sixth grade.
It looks like it could havebeen bought yesterday.
(24:23):
You know, and some of that is,you know, probably trauma
response, but I think a lot ofit is the fact that we are
raised to be archivists.
We really are Like, I like tosee that positive part of it,
not because the other side isnot there, trust, I like to see
that positive part of it, notbecause the other side is not
there.
Trust me, I have a lot ofcritique about it, but we are
shown a lot of the negativityabout our culture and I think
(24:45):
it's great to look at it througha different lens.
And so we're still engaging inthe cultural memory work.
We're still doing archivalprojects.
We're still doing with ourinterior design choices, like we
may not be doing the Damascuswallpaper anymore, but there's
still storytelling, there'sstill art practice, and like
it's more of a metaphor in a lotof spaces than it is a physical
(25:09):
room, but the care, theinheritance, the layered
belonging that's sort ofreconfigured for a new context,
it's still there the layeredbelonging that's sort of
reconfigured for a new context,it's still there.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
You said so much that I was like I could cut you off
and we could take thisconversation into so many
different realms.
Because, as we're talking aboutshoes, I was like, yes, I know
a couple of people, well, thatwill put their Clarks in the
freezer and have their specialtoothbrush.
You know all of these things.
But also, as you're talking andI'm like, I'm sitting in my
apartment and I'm like, okay, Idon't actually have a front room
because you know, I have asingle girl's apartment, right,
(25:44):
so it's not enough rooms here tohave my own front room.
But I definitely do have tracesof these front room things,
right, the heirlooms, thecultural motifs.
I have a thing of, you know, aJamaican proverb on my fridge,
right, like all of these thingswould have maybe historically
been, you know, configured inone place for different
(26:05):
generations.
But also to understand thatthere is always that home, back
home, you know, on the islandsthat we can all go to, where the
front room can be definitelykept and pristine, you know, of
our parents' generation.
There is that sort ofconfiguration of you know, this
will always be our home in asense, right, where the front
(26:27):
room can exist for generations,for several years, whereas, you
know, as we are moving throughlife and understanding our own
challenges, and, you know, thefront room is there oftentimes,
hopefully, for a lot of folks togo back to.
But the ways that we do thatfor ourselves is definitely very
interesting In a lot of ways.
I think what you were sayingabout preservation, in terms of
(26:49):
how we archive ourselves andkeep our histories alive, it is
also a sign of our, you know,tendency of respectability in
several ways, which I think,again, definitely comes down
through that, you know, britishimperialness and its presence on
our lives and especially how wehave to perform as Black people
, oftentimes as well.
But I think, as you said, right, it's a complicated
(27:12):
juxtaposition between being like, ok, you know, it's so terrible
that we've, you know, done thisthing because of British
imperialism, but also there isbeauty in the ways that we've
adapted it.
So I definitely, you know, echothose sentiments and really
agree.
I'm appreciative for you tosort of bring that to light for
us, right, it's not just eitheror.
(27:34):
In a lot of ways, I think youknow this also brings me to my
favorite question of the show.
I oftentimes am, you know,always thinking through the ways
that we model and highlightthese aspects of who we are in
popular culture.
Right, what are some of yourfavorite examples of you know
(28:03):
seeing whether you know be theCaribbean front room in movies
or in shows and stuff like that,or just you know overall ways
that you've seen Caribbeandomesticity really being brought
to life through popular culture?
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Oh my goodness, yes, when I was thinking about this I
was walking down memory lanebecause I grew up on Saturday
nights watching Oliver with myparents.
If you know, you know, okay, ifyou don't know.
So the sets on those reallystick in my mind, especially the
airport scenes and howinteresting people were sort of
(28:35):
navigating the space and how itwas really created by the
experience.
And so, oh my goodness, I thinka huge part of my humor, like
my interests, are really formedaround those memories.
But if you guys are notfamiliar with Van Lee Burke,
he's a British Jamaicanphotographer and he does Black
British interiors, a BritishJamaican photographer, and he
(29:00):
does Black British interiors,especially with people who are
migrating, and I absolutely lovethe photos that he has because
it's not just a space, it's likea documentation of taste and of
migration, of aspiration, asI've mentioned several times.
And if you're also familiarwith Miss Lou Louise Bennett
poetry, it makes things feelalive and intimate at the same
(29:23):
time.
I really love her work.
It kind of really understandslike the language around things
and parts of that sameperformance.
And in popular culture wereally can see traces of the
front room in everything I feelyou know um old dance hall album
(29:45):
covers, old reggae album covers.
In the way that certain filmsframe direct domestic interiors,
um, there's like a ceremonialstillness to it and you know
what?
Um, if you've ever watchedreality tv with your two-way
grandma, if you haven't, Ihighly recommend trying it.
(30:05):
It's great.
Um, my grandma, I miss herterribly.
She's gone, but I rememberwe're constantly her saying they
couldn't have cleaned up theirhouse like for tv and those
kinds of things.
And so I think, like when I lookat the way homes are portrayed
in the media here versus thatpristineness that has remained
(30:27):
in Jamaican media, and itdoesn't matter how small your
home is, it doesn't matter whatkind of status you have with
money I think that's somethingthat I've always appreciated.
I have been freshly out of gradschool, so the come up has been
a build for a lot of times andyou lived in many different
spaces based off of what you canafford.
(30:48):
But that's never an excuse tohave your room dirty.
That's never an excuse to havesome of those things changing.
So I think that's reallyreflected, even still, in
popular culture.
And so the descriptions of thegood room, this untouched, over
decorated space that's reservedfor guests, it's like full of
(31:08):
meaning and I think it's reallyincredible.
There are a lot of people thatlayer that choreography with
domestic life, but I also thinkwhat's really woven in with it.
Alexandria is like this idea ofwork.
Okay, trigger warning for theJamaicans.
How many of us had to learnHeights of Great Men Reaching
(31:30):
Kept or Not Attained by SuddenFlight?
Okay.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Carry on.
I'm not even gonna go ahead,I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
You know that.
You learned that before youlearned to read.
Okay, but they, while theircompanions slept, come on,
finish it with me for toilingupward in the night, okay.
So, like I remember my dadteaching me that very early, and
I think like one of my pridepoints of being Jamaican is how
(32:01):
tough I am when it comes to workethic.
And people might say, well,what does that have to do with
design and architecture?
It has everything to do with it.
All of these things are woventogether.
It's impossible to divorce them.
And there are, like this idea ofnot just showing respectability
, because part of what's bakedinto respectability is work
(32:24):
ethic.
You cannot be respectable ifyou are lazy or you know not
doing work.
It's to show off the work andwhat you have done as well.
And so I think I'm likestraying from your question a
little bit, but, um, you knowthere are lots of references um
photography, and so I've uh beencapturing a lot of it with film
(32:48):
, which I love, um super 8, 35millimeter, 120 millimeter, and
I uh polaroid sometimes, becauseI think that the colors, the
images, those things are stillwithin popular culture.
But so I mentioned reggae, Imentioned dance hall albums, I
mentioned, like old comedy playswe love a good play.
(33:12):
I think even church is a hugepart of that weaving in, of
bringing the church inside ofyour home in some way and having
that reflected, that mirroredrelationship, the conversation
between church and homehappening.
But also there's Instagram.
For those of us that are morelike in today.
(33:32):
We look at those curated spaces.
There's the television today asfar as like shows that we watch
spaces.
There's the television today asfar as like shows that we watch
.
I'm not really plugged into theTV scene in Jamaica right now.
Like what shows are on, like Ishould probably check it out.
But fashion editorials, theecho, the texture we see that
(33:53):
everywhere.
And I just have like a messageof love for my Caribbean people
right now that I have to sharethe things that are used from us
have permeated the entire worldand the things that we have
brought to culture.
You know how Jamaicans say youknow like the things that we
(34:14):
have are everywhere.
But tell them why you know likethe things that we have are
everywhere and you can feel, andshould feel, a sense of pride
at how much that's permeatedculture, to the fact where I
can't even think for yourquestion, like.
Is this Caribbean, is it not?
It's permeated so many spaces.
So I think that I went off therails a bit like my answer.
(34:37):
So I think that I went off therails a bit with my answer, but
you can look up Olive Senior,andrew Levy.
You know the energy of thehousehold.
A lot of Caribbean writers usethat.
Jamaica, kincaid a lot of thesefaces and these incredible
writers.
I'm sure I'm forgetting many,but, as I mentioned, a lot of
(34:59):
that British input, because thatwas Wadsworth Longfellow, that
poem that we all had to learn,and those different things.
A lot of those are domesticitythat's mirrored in pop culture
or in everyday life or in thethings that even we had to learn
from the media.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
You took me down several memory routes of memory
lane a while ago, right, but Ido.
I do definitely agree with whatyou said in terms of not only
the wealth of Caribbeaninfluence in the world, but also
the you know sort of myriadways you can see this, whether
it is through writing, throughphotography, through plays,
(35:37):
right, so I will be sure to linka lot of these books and
similar media on our StrictlyFacts syllabus for all of those
who are wanting to check outmore.
I definitely want to tie ourconversation together, because I
started with this point onarchitecture, right, and I think
oftentimes when people hear theword architecture, they're not
(36:01):
immediately going to what we'vespoken about today.
Right, they're thinking abouthow buildings are built and
bridges and all of these thingsthat I'm not heavily versed in,
right, all that to be said, thefront room, you know what we've
spoken about in terms ofCaribbean domesticity and home
life.
Like we are the architects ofnot just the physical space but
(36:25):
of these cultural spaces, right,especially when you consider
the systemic barriers that havebeen and impacted our lives.
Right, not only have we built alot of these things and haven't
systemically gotten credit forthem, or historically gotten
credit for them, rather.
But we've found ways to do thatfor our own selves, within our
own homes, within these privatespaces, within church, et cetera
(36:48):
, right Places that we can notonly find comfort and solace in,
right, but be proud of andpreserve for ourselves.
Right, but be proud of andpreserve for ourselves.
And so how do you, you know,think this interpretation of
architecture right?
Not of the people who arebuilding the bridges and the
buildings and stuff, but, youknow, creating this home life
(37:11):
for us.
How does this interpretationshed new light on what we
generally think of as Caribbeanarchitecture?
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Wow, what a beautiful question.
These questions are amazing,like you, should be like a
research question, like aconsultant.
These are quite good, I think,man.
It shows us that Caribbeanarchitecture is expansive, and I
feel this way about allarchitecture.
I think a lot of times, likeyou know, in my particular field
in architecture, it's solimited to this specific
(37:50):
definition and my work hasthought about how to expand that
past what, like some, of themore purest or formal way of
looking at things as anarchitecture is walls and
ceiling and floor, just to belike super literal.
But a lot of us not just me byany means are looking at sort of
(38:12):
the behavioral aspect, thathuman aspect in Caribbean
architecture.
To get to your question is it'snot just about verandas,
jealousy, windows, passiveventilation although I'm very
interested in all of that and alot of that really, really
matters, especially when wethink about what we deal with
with climate, which is veryimportant, but it's also about
(38:35):
ritual, it's also about symbol,it's also about coded space, and
so the front room is a form ofspatial storytelling.
It's architecture.
To me it's not just in itsmaterials but in its intention,
and our mothers and grandmothersand grandfathers they were
(38:59):
practicing design andarchitecture without some of
these labels that we use and Ithink because of that it gets to
be dismissed.
But the interior design, thecuration of home, the way of
fighting not even fighting back,but joining in with climate to
protect homes, and things likethat are very Caribbean.
(39:22):
You know, when we think aboutsustainability, even Caribbeans
are at the front lines of theresponse to a lot of those
things.
And because they don't maybecarry the same names, like that,
nomenclature is not there.
In the same way, I think it canbe dismissed.
And so arranging space aroundvisibility, respect, aspiration,
(39:46):
memory it's not just decorating, it's curating meaning, it's
staging, belonging, it'sconstructing a very specific
type of legibility that's meantto make your children and your
grandchildren feel this level ofinclusion within a colonial and
diasporic framework.
Like that is architecture to me, and I very much feel strongly
(40:11):
about that, and I think it'sreally important if you are a
Caribbean person, it's reallyimportant if you are a Caribbean
person.
I think like it's important toreframe your narrative, if you
don't already have this, of thethings that I have been doing.
Even if they don't have thesame name, they can still fit
(40:35):
into the certain framework orthey can be expansive, even
beyond it.
We have been contributing to alot of these different design
conversations in huge ways, andso I do think a lot about those
specific things.
You know the filigree, thespecific types of windows, the
specific types of, you know,material culture that we have
within architecture and thehistory with it.
But I also feel that the frontroom really disrupts the idea
(41:00):
that architecture is only abouta specific type of
interpretation and is only aboutprofessional involvement.
I think it really reinforces usto think about architectural
authorship, which I think isreally important.
Who gets to be called adesigner?
Who is seen as someone who'sshaping space?
(41:22):
And my research for Goody, Ispecifically thought about
mothers and how mothers arereally responsible for showing
us specifically me, thatarchitecture and design can be
emotional, it can be symbolic,it can be deeply domestic and
it's not just the materials thatyou might think.
You know concrete, timber, eventhough those are incredibly
(41:45):
important, but it's also lacerunners, you know plastic
flowers, souvenir figurines,moral maxims that we have and
the silence that we use tocreate.
All these different things arematerials and I have sometimes
felt like out of place withinsome of the architectural
(42:07):
conversations, but that's okay,and if you feel out of place as
a Caribbean in certainconversations.
Just know that that's yourinvitation to expand it and
that's how I have taken it.
And I think that ourunderstanding of how space
performs in Caribbean life, howarchitecture has become a form
of social choreography, iscritical.
(42:28):
The threshold, the guests, thegaze, you know the active
display, is all a part ofspatial ritual.
And the front room is not justa room, it's a spatial
philosophy and it teaches usthat caribbean architecture
includes the structural but italso moves beyond it.
(42:50):
And that's not just caribbeanarchitecture, that's many, many,
many cultures.
It's cultural, it's psychic,it's intergenerational.
I hope that responds to thequestion.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
I very much so think.
So I think you know the way thatyou've outlined it for us.
I find not only like deeplymoving, especially as somebody
who is in these higher ed spacesright, and sometimes doing
things that are out of norm ortradition right, but also, again
(43:27):
, wanting to ensure that I amwho I am and I bring who I am to
the fore when I'm in certainspaces.
So I hope, as you said, right,that those who you know may be
waiting through some of thesechallenges or, you know,
negotiations, continue to bringthemselves to the four.
I also find deeply what you saidin terms of you know how our
(43:51):
foremothers and forefathers havealways been architects, right,
just not only moving, but trulylike we've continued to do this
for generations.
So they are truly the pilots ofyou know cultures in a lot of
our culture in a lot of ways,and so I don't want to take too
much of the ending of ourepisode away from what you
beautifully just put for us.
(44:13):
So I will bring us to a closeand say, dr Scott, I am
tremendously appreciative foryou joining me on the show.
It's always, I think,especially a joy for me to have
a fellow Yadi on the podcast andidentify with a lot of what
we're saying in some of theseintricate ways, although, as we
said, right, a lot of this candefinitely parallel and has
(44:34):
definitely paralleled in otherparts of the region, parallel
and has definitely paralleled inother parts of the region, and
so I am grateful to have youjoin us and, you know, be a new
part of our Strictly Factsfamily to our listeners.
you know, big up on ourselves, Ihope you know.
This was again a reallythought-provoking conversation
and one that forced you to thinka little bit about maybe your
own front rooms growing up andhow you hope to maybe even bring
(44:58):
the front room into your livesnow, in nuanced ways, of course,
as we've discussed.
So with that, I again hope youall enjoyed the episode.
Until next time, lookle more.
Thanks for tuning in toStrictly Facts.
Visit strictlyfactspodcastcomfor more information from each
episode.
Follow us at Strictlyfaxpod onInstagram and Facebook and at
(45:22):
strictlyfaxpd on Twitter.
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