Sara Joyce Macdonald

Sara Joyce is researching museum interpretation of taxonomic names within natural history.

Sara Joyce is interested in the ways that whakapapa and taxonomy are aligned, how we can bring connection to the forefront of natural sciences, and what the future of decolonised taxonomic categorisation could be.

While she was born in the United States, she was raised in Hamilton, Aotearoa, before moving to Halifax, Canada. In Halifax, she pursued a Bachelor of Arts in History and Business Management at the University of King’s College. With a BA focus on government intelligence agencies in history and historiographical perspective, she began to develop a keen interest in the underlying meaning and intention behind the way that information is presented to the public. After her BA, she spent 7 years working in the private sector, at a Canadian provincial fisheries exporter and finance, and the public sector in a front-facing provincial government office. She then moved back to Aotearoa to pursue her MMHP.

Sara Joyce graduated with her Master’s in Museum and Heritage Practice with distinction at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington in 2024. During this time she worked on projects with Engineering New Zealand, Te Papa, Network Waitaki, and Waitaki Museum. She was the Dame Cheryll Sotheran scholar of 2024 at Te Papa Tongarewa, where she completed an internship focused on the interpretation of Haliotis iris (blackfoot pāua) in the museum’s Te Taiao exhibition. As part of this research, she created a question development workshop for the Current, a public forum for questions around nature challenges in Aotearoa, which was presented to secondary school, undergraduate, and graduate students. She also wrote a blog for Te Papa about collection items containing pāua, which can be found at Hidden pāua of Collections Online | Te Papa’s Blog.

Sara Joyce’s research objective is to outline binomial nomenclature as an enduring tool of colonisation within natural history museum interpretation and practice. Museums are one of the spaces that should be used as a stepping stone towards change as we look towards a future that actively pursues post-colonial interpretations of natural history. She aims to promote a direction for new tools and understanding of connection in nature with whakapapa as taxonomy at the centre.

Contact: sarajoyce.macdonald@vuw.ac.nz