Professor Osayimwese's research is built around employing the built environment as a lens through which to analyze complex historical moments such as experiences of colonialism, the globalization of capital, and their previous and current effects. Her new book project,  Barbados and Boston: Histories of Migration and the Built Environment, 1838-1990 researches the intersections between the legacies of colonialism on the built environment and the spatial politics of migration among the Barbadian diaspora at home and abroad.