John Bogardus

John Bogardus received his M.A. in Sociology from the University of British Columbia. For over a decade, he was active in trade union, community and global social justice concerns while successively employed as a sawmill and steel foundry worker, first aid attendant, and licensed carpenter. Training as a psychiatric nurse led to extended employment as a youth worker in a residential treatment centre and an interest in the power dynamics inherent in the production of knowledge, the subject of his doctoral thesis in Anthropology at SFU.  A five-year involvement as co-coordinator and facilitator of SFU’s Instructional Skills Workshop informed “Creating an Inclusive Community of Critical, Independent Thinkers,” a one-day workshop on collaborative classroom practices which has been presented at various universities and colleges on the lower mainland and southern Vancouver Island. John joined the Department of Sociology and Anthropology (SA) to facilitate innovative teaching practices and to develop undergraduate courses in both disciplines. Three writing-intensive offerings -- Anthropology and Contemporary Life, Perspectives on Canadian Society, and Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism -- are among the many courses he has designed. More recently, John co-developed the SA department’s Field Study of non-governmental and grassroots organizations in response to student demand for community-based learning. 

PhD (Anthropology), Simon Fraser University
MA (Sociology), University of British Columbia
BA (Anthropology), University of British Columbia

Political sociology; political anthropology; Marxism; anarchism; critical pedagogy; community-centred research; participatory action research; institutional ethnography; auto-ethnography; global social justice.

• Cormack Award for Teaching Excellence in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.
• Cormack Award Presentation: “What’s University Education For, Anyway?” It is respectfully acknowledged that this 35 minute presentation took place on the traditional, unceded, occupied territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish),  Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh), and Kwikwetlem (kwikwəƛ̓ əm) Nations."