How do we apply the lessons of the past to change the future? You inspire lasting change as Professor Joy Porter has. As a Professor of Environmental and Indigenous History her work has informed laws, changed exam syllabuses, and reimagined museums. She is a world-renowned and award-winning researcher and writer and delivers keynotes and invited lectures at universities across Europe and North America.
Joy has policy expertise in the field of historical indigenous treaties and has contributed to changes within Canadian law. She is the co-founder and co-principal investigator of the Treatied Spaces Research Group, which brings together educators, Indigenous groups, museums, creative artists, NGOs and policymakers to make treaties and environmental concerns central to education, policy and public understanding.
Joy supports museums and heritage spaces internationally to decolonise their collections and include indigenous voices. She recently co-produced two major exhibitions, including Dress to Redress: Exploring Native American Material Culture, which featured work from Material Kwe by Anishinabekwe artist Dr Celeste Pedri-Spade. Dress to Redress (American Museum & Gardens 19 March - 3 July 2022) celebrated the inspirational women in Dr. Pedri-Spade’s community while examining oil pipeline politics, Indigenous diplomacy, and the wider cultural significance of the British Crown’s relationships with Indigenous populations in the Northeastern United States.
Joy also led the research project ‘Clan Mothers of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy’. The Clan Mothers within the Haudenosaunee Confederacy of Northeastern North America have always occupied a powerful and vital role within their communities. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy, also known as the Six Nations or the Iroquois, is a matrilineal society; each Clan is linked by a common female ancestor, with women undertaking leadership roles within the Clan. Everything in the Clans’ worldview is vested in the life-giving force of women, who have both a political and spiritual voice. Joy and the team are researching their absence in the written archive.
Joy helps examination boards in the UK include Indigenous perspectives in the school curriculum. She has worked with the British Library on a project about Indigenous languages and with English Heritage and Historic England to explore Indigenous presence in Historic Houses. She is committed to supporting the needs of students from diverse educational backgrounds and was recognised in 2018 by the award of a National Teaching Fellowship and in 2014 by the Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. In 2023, she was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in recognition of her service to historical study.
She is also the co-lead of the Leverhulme Doctoral Centre for Water Cultures, which explores our relationship with water and is the Primary Investigator (PI) for the Arts and Humanities Research Council funded “Brightening the Covenant Chain: Revealing Cultures of Diplomacy Between the Iroquois and the British Crown”.
Header image: 'Water Warrior (detail) by Dr Celeste Pedri- Spade'.