Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts.

What remains of Caribbean identity when our most treasured traditions begin to shift? Bridging thoughts from our recent episodes, I tackle this profound question on cultural evolution. Caribbean culture has never been static—born from struggle, layered with influences, and shaped by resistance, our traditions have always been in motion. But what do we make of it when these traditions are to slip away?

There is a natural grief or worry in this loss, but perhaps we can also consider that culture never truly disappears; it simply translates and transforms. The heart of Caribbean identity persists in unexpected places. Our indomitable spirit of rhythm and rebellion continues today as we adapt to new technologies and circumstances. This isn't to dismiss the importance of preservation. Documenting stories, supporting local artists, and archiving our heritage matters deeply. But we can simultaneously honor what's fading while celebrating what's being born.

What does being Caribbean mean to you when old ways shift? Do you see echoes of our traditions in new forms? Share your thoughts through email, DM, or send a voice note through our website. This podcast is our collective story—and that story is still being written.

Support the show

Connect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | YouTube | Website

Looking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!

Want to Support Strictly Facts?

• Rate & Leave a Review on your favorite platform
• Share this episode with someone or online and tag us
• Send us a DM or voice note to have your thoughts featured on an upcoming episode
• Donate to help us continue empowering listeners with Caribbean history and education

Produced by Breadfruit Media

Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts.

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.

Support the show

Connect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | YouTube | Website

Looking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!

Want to Support Strictly Facts?

• Rate & Leave a Review on your favorite platform
• Share this episode with someone or online and tag us
• Send us a DM or voice note to have your thoughts featured on an upcoming episode
• Donate to help us continue empowering listeners with Caribbean history and education

Produced by Breadfruit Media

Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts.

The Caribbean's artistic traditions reveal profound truths about our history, identity, and resilience. Keisha Oliver, PhD candidate at Penn State, joins Strictly Facts as we discuss Bahamian visual culture that challenges conventional understandings of Caribbean creativity. From the gendered practice of straw craft—where women wove not just materials but stories across generations—to the radical educational approaches of forgotten art pioneers, this conversation uncovers how visual expression became a battleground for decolonization. Horace Wright traveled between islands as the Bahamas' only art educator during segregation, while Donald Russell created alternative spaces where Black and white students could learn together despite societal barriers. Their stories reflect the complex migratory patterns that define Caribbean identity itself: birth in one nation, heritage from another, and contributions to a third.

Most provocatively, Oliver poses an existential question gaining urgency as climate change threatens island nations: "How do we preserve who Bahamians were outside the physicality of the Bahamas?" This challenge demands innovative approaches to cultural documentation that honor indigenous and African diasporic traditions while embracing new technologies and platforms. By framing arts education as a form of Black radical thought, this episode reveals how cultural expression functions as political resistance and nation-building. The conversation ultimately demonstrates that art doesn't merely reflect Caribbean identity—it actively creates it, serving as both anchor to our past and compass toward our future.

Keisha Oliver is Bahamian assistant professor of Art and Design at the University of The Bahamas, and a PhD candidate in the dual-title Art Education and African American and Diaspora Studies program at the Pennsylvania State University. As an artist-scholar whose research intersects heritage studies and arts pedagogy, Oliver’s current work focuses on mid-twentieth century transcultural African diasporic art histories and archives. She currently stewards the Charles Blockson Collection of African Americana and The African Diaspora at Penn State and serves on several boards for arts organizations in the Caribbean and United States. Her research has been published internationally in the areas of museum studies, visual arts research, Bahamian art, and Caribbean art history.

Support the show

Connect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | YouTube | Website

Looking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!

Want to Support Strictly Facts?

• Rate & Leave a Review on your favorite platform
• Share this episode with someone or online and tag us
• Send us a DM or voice note to have your thoughts featured on an upcoming episode
• Donate to help us continue empowering listeners with Caribbean history and education

Produced by Breadfruit Media