Joy Owen

A single mother to a toddler, Professor Joy Owen also heads the Anthropology department at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa. Prior to her employment at UFS, she was the head of the Anthropology department and the Deputy Dean of Humanities (Teaching and Learning) at Rhodes University (Grahamstown) during the #feesmustfall movement in higher education institutions in South Africa.

With diverse interests including critical pedagogy, the art of anthropological fieldwork, ethnographic writing, social capital, intersectionality and transnational migration Prof Owen's monograph on Congolese migrants in Muizenberg, Cape Town (2015) explored Congolese transnational social networks and how these supported the 'progress' of individual members.

Her more recent research projects consider the decolonial 'project' in higher education in South Africa, motherhood in the academy and the narratives of contemporary 'self-exiled' transmigrant South Africa.

Professor Joy Owen is visiting Oxford in Trinity Term 2019 as one of the TORCH Global South Visiting Professors. Her academic host is Professor Wale Adebanwi, director of the African Studies Centre of the University of Oxford.

During her stay, Professor Owen will be involved in the organisation of the conference ‘Racialisation and Publicness in Africa and the African Diaspora’. She will also participate in other events within the University, to try to engage with students and academics from the University.

Here you can find the press release announcing Joy’s nomination as a TORCH Global South Visiting Fellow.