Prof. Dr. Henrike Rau

Research Interests

• Social-scientific and interdisciplinary sustainability research
• (Un)sustainable consumption patterns in the areas of mobility, energy and food
• Dynamics of mobility practices across the life course, diverse mobility cultures and the mobility-related (re-)distribution of temporal and spatial resources
• Transport, mobilities and the ‘consumption of distance’
• Household energy use in Europe
• Cross-cultural, comparative studies and qualitative and quantitative research methodologies.

Doctoral Students Supervised

Current Students

• Sevgi Mutlu Sirakova, “Connected Food: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Interspecies Encounters of Informal Food Transfers” (co-supervisor)
• Talitta Reitz, “Community Transformation and Ecological Restoration in Portland, Oregon, and Munich, Bavaria” (co-supervisor)
• Pui Ting Wong, “Electricity Demand. Explanations and Predictions on the Basis of Time-use Analysis” (co-supervisor
• Fausto Ignatov Vinueza, „Die Ambivalenzen des Erfolgs: Diskurse über Entwicklung, Wachstum und Extraktivismus” (co-supervisor)

Past Students

• Gary Goggins, “Public Food Consumption and the Role of Organisations in Localised Food Systems”
• Sarah O'Malley, “Reconnecting Children and Nature? A Sociological Study of Environmental Educa¬tion in Ireland”
• Emmet Fox, “Society, Power and Climate Change: A Social Critique of Public Climate Change Receptivity in Ireland”
• Mike Hynes, “Mobility Matters: Technology, Telework and the (Un)sustainable Consumption of Distance”
• Barbara Heisserer, “Curbing the Consumption of Distance? A Practice-theoretical Investigation of an Employer-based Mobility Management Initiative to Promote More Sustainable Commuting”
• Lisa Moran, “Tacit Knowledge and Resistance: The Impact of Rural Knowledge–Based Cultures on the Implementation of Environmental Policy in Connemara”
• Noel Healy, “Parks and Protected Areas: Integrating Environmental Policies into the Tourism Product”