I am an art and architectural historian specializing in histories of modernity, migration, and settlement. My writing and teaching centers African and South Asian questions in the study of architecture, environments, art, and design. I work as an Associate Professor at Barnard College, Columbia University.
My work examines intellectual histories, aesthetic practices, and cultural production through objects, buildings, and landscapes. I am interested in the fundamental problem of inhabitation—the cultural and sociopolitical focus of architecture—revealed through historical research on structures and figures that carry profound significance yet have not been or are not typically recognized as purveyors of social and aesthetic value. My work interrogates historicity and archives, heritage politics, and feminist and colonial practices, building on yearslong research in Africa, Asia, and Europe for two scholarly monographs,
Architecture of Migration and Ecologies of the Past. These two projects inform my wider body of research on histories of architecture, craft, settlement, and land, experiences of migration and territorial partition, and knowledge of the past through architectural practice, pedagogy, and discourse on the African continent and South Asian subcontinent.
I am committed to open knowledge in the service of people. In particular, I work to share knowledge on aesthetic and cultural heritage, the art and architectural history that holds special meaning for communities. My scholarship foregrounds histories of marginalized people and figures and promotes practices of collaboration and support, especially concerning the lives and narratives of communities that have been systematically excluded or silenced. I try to disseminate my research widely, through scholarly and critical articles that appear on syllabi in institutions around the world, and serve in steering and governance positions in centers and institutes at Barnard College, Columbia University, and scholarly and cultural institutions in the fields of architectural history, Africana studies, South Asian studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies. I also work regularly with communities on developing narratives of their experiences and histories, particularly through historical understandings of aesthetic form and spatial and material practice. I work closely with the GoDown Arts Centre in Nairobi, Kenya, as well as multiple institutions in South Asia on crafting archives and historical knowledge of architecture and the arts, especially of ephemeral yet significant environments. I curated Dadaab Commons, an exhibition in Nairobi on migration and collective approaches to land and shared intellectual heritage. I have also published art and design books on socially and environmentally meaningful work: Minnette De Silva: Intersections (Mack Books) and The L!brary Book: Design Collaborations in the Public Schools (Princeton Architectural Press).
One of the most fulfilling aspects of my scholarship is my work as an editor and collaborative writer. I am an Associate Editor of African Studies Review, a former International Editor of The Journal of Architecture, and have guest edited several collections of articles from development through publication. I enjoy working with emerging and experienced scholars to bring their ideas and arguments into writerly form. I have founded and led several writing and reading collectives, including the multi-institutional working groups Settlement and Caregiving as Method, Insurgent Domesticities at the Columbia University Center for the Study of Social Difference, the Barnard College and Columbia University student-led web and podcast series Building Solidarities: Racial Justice in the Built Environment, and the Columbia University Seminar Studies in Contemporary Africa.
I hold a Ph.D. in the History of Art and Archaeology, a Master of Architecture degree, and a professional architectural license. My background includes ten years of architectural practice in Bengaluru, Philadelphia, and New York, as well as work for the Women’s Refugee Commission, United Nations Foundation, and Robin Hood Foundation. I was born in Chennai. I knit, I like to read, I love my family, I am crazy about my dog Mister Darcy who introduced me to environmental caregiving, and I will always struggle for justice and peace for us all. Please feel free to be in contact with me to learn more.
Acknowledgements
My institutional position is indebted. I am mindful of the elders, relatives, and children of Lenapehoking, whose unceded land is occupied by the institution that employs me and who have been stewards of this land; the displaced peoples and citizens of many Indigenous nations for whom New York has been home; Black and Brown people whose enslavement is written into the wealth of my institution; past and present Harlem neighbors to whose labor and disenfranchisement my campus owes a debt; essential workers who make academic work possible; migrants whose dispossession and sacrifices have ensured the prosperity of the institution where I work, especially those impacted by United States imperial interests, who arrive to this country to participate in its economy or flee homes targeted by its military; those lost in war, emergency, constructed environmental scarcity, and a pandemic due to colonial practices that we have allowed to persist, and those who remain at risk due to inhumane economies, carceral and security states, and racist, sexist, and casteist policies that we must actively refuse. Here is a compilation of resources on racial justice, and I welcome information about others.
Conducting research around the world involves intense personal commitment on the part of scholars and their loved ones, takes years, and is costly. Knowing that selective grants and fellowships structurally favor those working within powerful states and institutions, I acknowledge a variety of supports that enable me to develop complex methodologies and scope for my publications. My work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, Social Science Research Council, Fulbright-Nehru Scholar Program, American Institute of Indian Studies, American Institute of Sri Lankan Studies, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, and Barnard College, Columbia University, Harvard University, and New York University.
Scholarly caregiving over years—by principled colleagues, passionate teaching assistants, breathtaking students, and committed librarians and archivists—has enabled my work, as has my beloved family, birth and adopted, sprawled across the world and the corners of my home.
The photo on this page is by Jennifer Birmingham and the “Teaching” thumbnail photo of Audre Lorde is by Robert Alexander/Getty Images. All other images on this website except book and journal covers and captioned images as indicated were made by the author. Please visit all source literature for credits and captions.
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This website was created by Sahil Iyer Siddiqi.