Dr. Brandon Marc Finn
Research Faculty at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability and leader of the Informal Sustainability Lab
Brandon Marc Finn founded and leads the Informal Sustainability Lab at the University of
Michigan. His ambitious, mixed-methods research seeks to drive a transformation in informality
scholarship by challenging dominant developmental orthodoxies and demonstrating that informality is the primary force shaping global urbanization. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in
Ghana and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, his projects explore the ‘informal paradox’ of e-waste recycling in Accra and challenge the formalization orthodoxy associated with artisanal and small-scale (informal) miners in the DRC. Ultimately, Finn’s scholarship reveals how urbanization and global supply chains are dialectically interlinked with informality, centering marginalized populations not as peripheral subjects, but as the foundational labor underpinning the modern economy. Finn’s work is published in leading journals, including Urban Sustainability, Dialogues in Human Geography, Urban Studies, Energy Research and Social Science, Resources Policy, Urban Geography, and Progress in Human Geography
Finn, B.M., Cobbinah, P.B. and Gounaridis, D., 2025. The informal paradox: electronic waste and the toxic circular economy in Ghana. npj Urban Sustainability, 5(1), p.101. Available at:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42949-025-00299-5#citeas
Finn, B.M., Backstrand, S., and Lukobo, E.M. 2026. Transformative cohabitation: A new approach to artisanal and small-scale mining interventions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Energy Research & Social Science, 135, p. 104651. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629626001222
Marume, W. and Finn, B.M., 2026. The architecture of opacity: Zimbabwe's diamond industry and its lessons for the mineral-driven energy transition. Resources Policy, 116, p.105920. Available at:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301420726000929
Bandauko, E, and Finn, B.M., 2026. Informal Infrastructuring: The defining feature of 21st century urbanization. Progress in Human Geography.
Available at:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03091325261438966?int.sj-full-text.similar-articles.5