Prior to lecturing at the University, Joy was a social worker with the Wellington Hospital Board and The Family Centre (Lower Hutt), manager of community services at Wellington City Council, and co-director of policy at the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.
“Joy was a beloved lecturer and a gifted and creative scholar-activist,” says Professor Sara Kindon from the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences, who was her friend, colleague, and PhD supervisor.
“Her doctoral thesis involved reflections from social work students in Wellington and Lincoln in the UK about what constituted sustainable community in their local and personal contexts, and sought to address a gap in social work education at the time concerning the absence of ecological dimensions of community. Like her other publications for journals like the Social Work Review, and the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy as well as for the Women’s Studies Association, and the New Zealand Social Welfare Commission, her work was ahead of its time: visionary, critically informed, and dedicated to enhancing relationships with people and the Earth.”
With the closure of the Social Work programme at the University in 2000, Joy channeled learnings from her doctorate and her long-term involvement in gardening and tramping, into restoration of a 10-acre wetland near Peka Peka on the Kapiti Coast, together with her partner Jill Abigail. They placed the wetland under a QEII Open Space Covenant, and in 2014 it became one of a few Key Native Ecosystem Sites within the greater Wellington region. It was then also designated an ‘Outstanding Natural Landscape’ by the Department of Conservation.
Alongside her work on wetland restoration, Joy also continued with part-time teaching, supervision, and mentoring for Massey University’s Bachelor of Social Work degree, as well as running training courses for various social service agencies. In 2016, Joy and Jill moved to Ōtaki where they built a new home and garden together.
Joy was for many years a guide at Nga Manu sanctuary in Waikanae, and enjoyed the educational component of that role. She was a foundation member of the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary Trust, a life member of the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of NZ, and life member of ECO (Environment and Conservation Organisations of NZ), as well as supporting many feminist and charitable causes.
“Interestingly, her 2000 thesis vision for social work pedagogy saw students from social sciences and natural sciences, such as ecology, environmental studies, and human geography, coming together within a curriculum of sustainability that would expand the horizons of research and teaching, and involve students in joint research projects addressing urgent and vexed problems,” says Professor Kindon.
“While this vision wasn’t able to be realised in social work at VUW during her lifetime, I think Joy would feel good knowing that the University is advancing interdisciplinary teaching about sustainability, and equipping a new generation of students to become catalysts for positive change in the world through the new Bachelor of Environment and Society.”
Joy Anderton's funeral was held in Waikanae on 8 January 2025.
Joy Anderton 21 December 1945–25 December 2024.