John Gaventa (1949 - ) is political sociologist and a fellow with the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, UK.
He received a MacArthur Award in 1981 for his work with the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee.
Gaventa received his B.A. from Vanderbilt University in 1971, and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. He taught at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville from until 1996. He started working at the Highlander Research and Education Center in 1976, and was director from 1993 until 1996.
His publications include
