BTU overview
Faculty 5
Chair of Sociology of Technology and the Environment Prof. Dr. phil. Melanie Jaeger-Erben

Mubarik Kassim Rabiu

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Mubarik Kassim Rabiu studied sociology at the University of Ghana. He then completed a Master of Science in Development Studies with specialisation in Sociology at Lund University in Sweden. Since November 2020, he has been working as a research assistant in an EU-funded project C-PlaNeT on his PhD, which he first started at the TU Berlin and is now continuing at the Chair of Sociology of Technology and Environment at BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg.

Education and scientific activity

  • 2008-2012 Studies in Sociology at the University of Ghana
  • 2016-2018 Studies in development policy with a focus on sociology at Lund University
  • 2019-2020 Research assistant at the Institute for Statistical Social and Economic Research (ISSER)
  • 2020-2021 Research assistant at the Technical University of Berlin

Current research

His current research focuses on the role and practices of consumers in a circular society with particular interest in the following research areas:

  • Consumer appropriation and routinisation of circular economy principles such as reuse, repair, refurbishment, etc.
  • Social innovations and how they challenge our classical understanding of and relationship to technology, environment and materials.
  • Environmental issues related to technology and co-creative design approaches.

Conceptually, it draws on ideas from:

  • Environmental Sociology
  • Social practice theory
  • New materialism and posthumanism

For Mubarik Kassim Rabiu, the link between technology and the environment is the simplification, from whose unpredictable consequences visible and invisible things suffer.

Current research project

11/2020-11/2023 Circular Plastic Network for Training (C-PlaNeT). ESR 6 - Consumer Practices in a Circular Society, funded by EU Innovative Training Networks (H2020 MSCA ITN).

Recent publications

Rabiu, M. K., & Jaeger-Erben, M. (2022). Appropriation and routinisation of circular consumer practices: A review of current knowledge in the circular economy literature. Cleaner and Responsible Consumption, 100081.

Rabiu, Mubarik Kassim (2021): “Approaching the circular consumer: The diverse appropriation of circular consumption strategies.” Presentation at the European Roundtable for sustainable consumption and production, September 2021, Graz, Austria.

Rabiu, Mubarik Kassim (2018): “Are we going to burn everything? Agbogbloshie’s Informal E-waste Workers’ Perspectives”. Master’s dissertation, May 2018, Lund University. https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/search/publication/8949527