This paper extends the classical theory of joinings of measurable dynamical systems to the noncommutative setting from several interconnected points of view. Among these is a particularly fruitful identification of joinings with equivariant quantum channels between $W^{\ast}$-dynamical systems that provides noncommutative generalizations of many fundamental results of classical joining theory. We obtain fully general analogues of the main classical disjointness characterizations of ergodicity, primeness and mixing phenomena.