John Abraham

Academic Dean, Continuing Lecturer and Manager of International Work Experience for the INDEV and MDP programs

John
Board member since 2021

I spent most of my childhood and youth living across four countries on three continents. This is where I believe my interdisciplinary academic journey began. I completed an undergraduate degree in Religious Studies at the University of Calgary, a Masters in Philosophy degree in Modern South Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Politics and International Relations from Royal Holloway, University of London. I then completed two postdoctoral fellowships: one on Community Based Conservation at St. Mary’s University (Halifax, Nova Scotia) and the second on Social Innovation at the University of Waterloo (WISIR) before serving as Assistant Professor of Global Studies and Social Entrepreneurship at Wilfrid Laurier University between 2016-19. On completion of that appointment, I joined the International Development Program at St. Paul’s University College.

My current research takes an interdisciplinary focus and engages issues of religion, political economy, environment, social innovation and decolonization. My recent and forthcoming journal publications have addressed issues of social innovation, the intellectual history of international development and the global political economy. Two of my longer term research projects include a book length study of the political economy of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in India and a decolonial analysis of life and work of the English activist and clergyman Charles Freer Andrews. I take an active interest in engaging the international development professional community and am a Board member of both Mennonite Central Committee, Ontario and the Ontario Council for International Cooperation.