Joy completed her undergraduate training in Social Anthropology at the University of Cape Town. She completed her Honours degree in MSocSc also with the University of Cape Town. In 2003 Joy joined the department as a Mellon funded lecturer for a contract period of three years. Initially she intended to complete a further eight months of research on the police in the Western Cape to fulfil the needed 12 months of fieldwork for the doctorate. However, interested in the newly observed migrations of migrants from the African continent to South Africa, Joy completed 15 months of fieldwork over a period of five years. Her final thesis conferred in April 2012 detailed the lives of Congolese migrant men and women the coastal ‘village’ of Muizenberg, Cape Town. She detailed their socialisation into new ways of economic being, while they maintained an economic habitus that garnered them support from other Congolese and a South African patron. In essence, the fine portrayal of three male migrants’ lives in Muizenberg demonstrated their graduation from social childhood to social adulthood.

"Transnational Congolese migration Diaspora studies Experiential ethnography Auto-anthropology Police ‘culture’ Race, ethnicity, identity and citizenship ‘African’ Masculinity/ies and femininity/ies Migrant livelihoods Migrant religion Sexuality/ies"