Rhodante Ahlers
Biographic Data
| ID | 1573954 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rhodante Ahlers |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rhodante |
| FAMILY NAME | Ahlers |
| SIGNATURE | AHLERS R |
| AFFILIATIONS | IHE Delft Institute for Water Education |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3821-5838 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 87 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Where walls of power meet the wall of money
Their ability to absorb substantial capital makes hydropower dams attractive projects for the “wall of money.” Although global webs of dynamic financial flows enable megaspatial transformations with huge temporal impacts, their opacity and fragmentation obfuscate possibilities for democratic decision making and accountability. This paper explores the question whether the interest in renewables and the ability of large infrastructure to absorb cap…
The Dutch aid and trade policy
Recent aid and trade policies reveal a ‘paradigm shift’ in which traditional donors have moved away from a focus on poverty alleviation and returned to an approach firmly aimed at economic growth. In prioritising economic growth in their development agenda, donors encourage the private sector as an active partner in development. Dutch development aid is exemplary in following this international trend. By examining development projects financed by…
Participatory processes and support tools for planning in complex dynamic environments
Van Cauwenbergh, N., A. Ballester Ciuró, and R. Ahlers. 2018. Participatory processes and support tools for planning in complex dynamic environments: a case study on web-GIS based participatory water resources planning in Almeria, Spain. Ecology and Society 23(2):2. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-09987-230202
Large Dam Development
This chapter argues that there are important distinctions between large dam development in the twentieth century and the twenty-first century by conceptually framing dams not as mere objects in space but also as agents in dynamic and contested spatial strategies. This is illustrated by two examples: the Aswan High Dam on the Nile, and the Nam Theun 2 on the Mekong. Twentieth-century dams may be likened to Trojan Horses in that they were important…
The Political Morphology of Drainage—How Gully Formation Links to State Formation in the Choke Mountains of Ethiopia
To understand why soil erosion is persistent despite three decades of massive investments in soil conservation, this paper explores how drainage and soil conservation change a hill slope in the Choke Mountains. By paying close attention to the practices that reshape the hill, we account for the active roles of people and material flows in shaping their identities, forms, and power relations. Social relations can be read in the landscape as their …
Why infrastructure still matters
Since the 1980s, a major change took place in public policies for water resources management. Whereas before governments primarily invested in the development, operation and maintenance of water infrastructure and were mainly concerned with the distribution of water, in the new approach they mainly focus on managing water resources systems by stipulating general frameworks for water allocation. This paper studies the rationales used to justify th…
Adapting Generic Models through Bricolage
In the aspiration to upscale their activities in the global South, development aid agencies have a tendency to design and implement generic models. These are often associated with desired characteristics and principles, such as participation or inclusion of the poorest. However, in the dynamic environment in which models are implemented, the design characteristics and principles are mitigated, adapted or reinforced by context-specific socially em…
Ambitious development on fragile foundations
Unleashing Entrepreneurs or Controlling Unruly Providers? The Formalisation of Small-scale Water Providers in Greater Maputo, Mozambique
The existing legal and policy framework regulating water service provision in Greater Maputo, Mozambique appears fixated on the official service areas. In doing so it inadequately addresses the geographically varied service provision modalities which characterise the city. We argue that the predominant legal and policy framework does little to support development of improved services in areas unserved by the formal utility. Although ad hoc measur…
Private equity, public affair
The myth of ‘healthy’ competition in the water sector
The water question in feminism
The current neo-liberal moment in water policy appears to offer possibilities for realizing feminist ambitions. Several feminist scholars see the individualization and privatization of resource rights as offering possibilities for confronting gender inequalities rooted in, and reproduced by, historic and structural male favoured access to productive resources such as land and water. But we seriously doubt a progressive feminist potential of neo-l…
The water question in feminism
The current neo-liberal moment in water policy appears to offer possibilities for realizing feminist ambitions. Several feminist scholars see the individualization and privatization of resource rights as offering possibilities for confronting gender inequalities rooted in, and reproduced by, historic and structural male favoured access to productive resources such as land and water. But we seriously doubt a progressive feminist potential of neo-l…
Private equity, public affair
Adapting Generic Models through Bricolage
In the aspiration to upscale their activities in the global South, development aid agencies have a tendency to design and implement generic models. These are often associated with desired characteristics and principles, such as participation or inclusion of the poorest. However, in the dynamic environment in which models are implemented, the design characteristics and principles are mitigated, adapted or reinforced by context-specific socially em…
Ambitious development on fragile foundations
Where walls of power meet the wall of money
Their ability to absorb substantial capital makes hydropower dams attractive projects for the “wall of money.” Although global webs of dynamic financial flows enable megaspatial transformations with huge temporal impacts, their opacity and fragmentation obfuscate possibilities for democratic decision making and accountability. This paper explores the question whether the interest in renewables and the ability of large infrastructure to absorb cap…
The myth of ‘healthy’ competition in the water sector
The Dutch aid and trade policy
Recent aid and trade policies reveal a ‘paradigm shift’ in which traditional donors have moved away from a focus on poverty alleviation and returned to an approach firmly aimed at economic growth. In prioritising economic growth in their development agenda, donors encourage the private sector as an active partner in development. Dutch development aid is exemplary in following this international trend. By examining development projects financed by…
The Political Morphology of Drainage—How Gully Formation Links to State Formation in the Choke Mountains of Ethiopia
To understand why soil erosion is persistent despite three decades of massive investments in soil conservation, this paper explores how drainage and soil conservation change a hill slope in the Choke Mountains. By paying close attention to the practices that reshape the hill, we account for the active roles of people and material flows in shaping their identities, forms, and power relations. Social relations can be read in the landscape as their …
Why infrastructure still matters
Since the 1980s, a major change took place in public policies for water resources management. Whereas before governments primarily invested in the development, operation and maintenance of water infrastructure and were mainly concerned with the distribution of water, in the new approach they mainly focus on managing water resources systems by stipulating general frameworks for water allocation. This paper studies the rationales used to justify th…
The water question in feminism
The current neo-liberal moment in water policy appears to offer possibilities for realizing feminist ambitions. Several feminist scholars see the individualization and privatization of resource rights as offering possibilities for confronting gender inequalities rooted in, and reproduced by, historic and structural male favoured access to productive resources such as land and water. But we seriously doubt a progressive feminist potential of neo-l…
Unleashing Entrepreneurs or Controlling Unruly Providers? The Formalisation of Small-scale Water Providers in Greater Maputo, Mozambique
The existing legal and policy framework regulating water service provision in Greater Maputo, Mozambique appears fixated on the official service areas. In doing so it inadequately addresses the geographically varied service provision modalities which characterise the city. We argue that the predominant legal and policy framework does little to support development of improved services in areas unserved by the formal utility. Although ad hoc measur…
Private equity, public affair
The myth of ‘healthy’ competition in the water sector
Adapting Generic Models through Bricolage
In the aspiration to upscale their activities in the global South, development aid agencies have a tendency to design and implement generic models. These are often associated with desired characteristics and principles, such as participation or inclusion of the poorest. However, in the dynamic environment in which models are implemented, the design characteristics and principles are mitigated, adapted or reinforced by context-specific socially em…
Ambitious development on fragile foundations
Why infrastructure still matters
Since the 1980s, a major change took place in public policies for water resources management. Whereas before governments primarily invested in the development, operation and maintenance of water infrastructure and were mainly concerned with the distribution of water, in the new approach they mainly focus on managing water resources systems by stipulating general frameworks for water allocation. This paper studies the rationales used to justify th…
Large Dam Development
This chapter argues that there are important distinctions between large dam development in the twentieth century and the twenty-first century by conceptually framing dams not as mere objects in space but also as agents in dynamic and contested spatial strategies. This is illustrated by two examples: the Aswan High Dam on the Nile, and the Nam Theun 2 on the Mekong. Twentieth-century dams may be likened to Trojan Horses in that they were important…
The Political Morphology of Drainage—How Gully Formation Links to State Formation in the Choke Mountains of Ethiopia
To understand why soil erosion is persistent despite three decades of massive investments in soil conservation, this paper explores how drainage and soil conservation change a hill slope in the Choke Mountains. By paying close attention to the practices that reshape the hill, we account for the active roles of people and material flows in shaping their identities, forms, and power relations. Social relations can be read in the landscape as their …
The Dutch aid and trade policy
Recent aid and trade policies reveal a ‘paradigm shift’ in which traditional donors have moved away from a focus on poverty alleviation and returned to an approach firmly aimed at economic growth. In prioritising economic growth in their development agenda, donors encourage the private sector as an active partner in development. Dutch development aid is exemplary in following this international trend. By examining development projects financed by…
Participatory processes and support tools for planning in complex dynamic environments
Van Cauwenbergh, N., A. Ballester Ciuró, and R. Ahlers. 2018. Participatory processes and support tools for planning in complex dynamic environments: a case study on web-GIS based participatory water resources planning in Almeria, Spain. Ecology and Society 23(2):2. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-09987-230202
Where walls of power meet the wall of money
Their ability to absorb substantial capital makes hydropower dams attractive projects for the “wall of money.” Although global webs of dynamic financial flows enable megaspatial transformations with huge temporal impacts, their opacity and fragmentation obfuscate possibilities for democratic decision making and accountability. This paper explores the question whether the interest in renewables and the ability of large infrastructure to absorb cap…
Political science (9 works) · Water Governance and Infrastructure (9 works) · Economics (8 works) · Geography (8 works) · Business (6 works) · Politics (5 works) · Child Nutrition and Water Access (4 works) · Context (archaeology (4 works) · Economic growth (4 works) · Environmental planning (4 works)