Portia Roelofs
Biographic Data
| ID | 78616 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Portia Roelofs |
| GIVEN NAMES | Portia |
| FAMILY NAME | Roelofs |
| SIGNATURE | ROELOFS P |
| AFFILIATIONS | King's College London |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6174-9478 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 35 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Large Grant-Funded Research Centres and Concept Generation in Development Research
Research centres are increasingly an integral part of the institutional and organisational infrastructure of knowledge production in development studies. However, whilst other components of the knowledge production have been problematised for their role in reproducing the hierarchies of the ‘global-north-dominated science and research ecosystem’ (Gebremariam, 2022), centres have received little direct attention. This paper identifies a new genera…
Hidden contestation: Valence issues, methodological blindness and the politics of development in Nigeria
Political competition in Africa is often characterized as suffering from a number of deficiencies at the level of political discourse and electoral campaigns, which together paint a picture of an essentially vacuous political life. This article contends that these absences are to some degree methodologically generated. If African political actors appear to have little substance to say about the most pressing social and economic issue of the day, …
Good Governance in Nigeria: Rethinking Accountability and Transparency in the Twenty-First Century
The death of political possibility? Reading State and society in Nigeria 40 years on
In this 2019 reboot of his collection of essays from the 1970s, Gavin Williams traces the lingering the impact of colonialism and international capital on Nigeria’s political economy, the shaky development of an indigenous industrial class and the changing role of the state in national development. However, reading the book, it is not clear what such an analysis is for . Is it intended as a diagnosis? An indictment? Williams leftist commitments a…
The Solid Facts of a Life
Urban renewal in Ibadan, Nigeria: World class but essentially Yoruba
Urban renewal is central to ‘world-class’ city aspirations on the African continent: demolitions and evictions exemplify the power of the state to restructure urban space, prioritizing elite forms of accumulation and enforcing aesthetic norms of cleanliness, order and modernity. The ubiquity of world-class city-making has been taken by urban studies scholars as evidence of African leaders’ converging on a unitary aspirational urban imaginary. Thi…
Contesting localisation in interfaith peacebuilding in Northern Nigeria
Amidst a ‘local turn’ in peacebuilding, donors have seized on the idea of ‘localising’ peacebuilding programmes. Donors have sought to include actors who have local knowledge and connections in order to make interventions more context-sensitive. Yet programmes premised on the fractiousness of Muslim-Christian relations, as many in northern Nigeria are, are inevitably absorbed into over-arching narratives of global civilisational encounter. How do…
Transparency and mistrust: Who or what should be made transparent
It is increasingly recognized in public administration that the relationship between trust and transparency is not straightforward. Recently, right‐wing populists have risen to power, rejecting transparency requirements based on documents while claiming that they “hide nothing.” Clearly, existing scholarly conceptualizations are insufficient for understanding how transparency operates as a value in real‐world political contestation. An analysis o…
Beyond programmatic versus patrimonial politics: Contested conceptions of legitimate distribution in Nigeria
This article argues against the long-standing instinct to read African politics in terms of programmatic versus patrimonial politics. Unlike the assumptions of much of the current quantitative literature, there are substantive political struggles that go beyond 'public goods good, private goods bad'. Scholarly framings serve to obscure the essentially contested nature of what counts as legitimate distribution. This article uses the recent politic…
Flying in the univer-topia: White people on planes, #RhodesMustFall and climate emergency
Sometimes it takes a bucket of shit to clean a university: this is the first lesson of the #FeesMustFall and #RhodesMustFall campaigns, led by black students at the University of Cape Town. In what
Framing and blaming: Discourse analysis of the Boko Haram uprising, July 2009
Competing discourses are involved in a meta-conflict over the meaning of the Boko Haram uprising in northern Nigeria in July 2009. These discourses are characterised by different conceptions of the state. This study analyses the struggle over the meaning of the uprising, using the theoretical framework of ‘meta-conflict’ set out by Horowitz and Brass, and a discourse analysis methodology based on the work of Foucault, and Lakoff and Johnson. An a…
Transparency and mistrust: Who or what should be made transparent
It is increasingly recognized in public administration that the relationship between trust and transparency is not straightforward. Recently, right‐wing populists have risen to power, rejecting transparency requirements based on documents while claiming that they “hide nothing.” Clearly, existing scholarly conceptualizations are insufficient for understanding how transparency operates as a value in real‐world political contestation. An analysis o…
Flying in the univer-topia: White people on planes, #RhodesMustFall and climate emergency
Sometimes it takes a bucket of shit to clean a university: this is the first lesson of the #FeesMustFall and #RhodesMustFall campaigns, led by black students at the University of Cape Town. In what
Beyond programmatic versus patrimonial politics: Contested conceptions of legitimate distribution in Nigeria
This article argues against the long-standing instinct to read African politics in terms of programmatic versus patrimonial politics. Unlike the assumptions of much of the current quantitative literature, there are substantive political struggles that go beyond 'public goods good, private goods bad'. Scholarly framings serve to obscure the essentially contested nature of what counts as legitimate distribution. This article uses the recent politic…
Urban renewal in Ibadan, Nigeria: World class but essentially Yoruba
Urban renewal is central to ‘world-class’ city aspirations on the African continent: demolitions and evictions exemplify the power of the state to restructure urban space, prioritizing elite forms of accumulation and enforcing aesthetic norms of cleanliness, order and modernity. The ubiquity of world-class city-making has been taken by urban studies scholars as evidence of African leaders’ converging on a unitary aspirational urban imaginary. Thi…
Hidden contestation: Valence issues, methodological blindness and the politics of development in Nigeria
Political competition in Africa is often characterized as suffering from a number of deficiencies at the level of political discourse and electoral campaigns, which together paint a picture of an essentially vacuous political life. This article contends that these absences are to some degree methodologically generated. If African political actors appear to have little substance to say about the most pressing social and economic issue of the day, …
Framing and blaming: Discourse analysis of the Boko Haram uprising, July 2009
Competing discourses are involved in a meta-conflict over the meaning of the Boko Haram uprising in northern Nigeria in July 2009. These discourses are characterised by different conceptions of the state. This study analyses the struggle over the meaning of the uprising, using the theoretical framework of ‘meta-conflict’ set out by Horowitz and Brass, and a discourse analysis methodology based on the work of Foucault, and Lakoff and Johnson. An a…
Transparency and mistrust: Who or what should be made transparent
It is increasingly recognized in public administration that the relationship between trust and transparency is not straightforward. Recently, right‐wing populists have risen to power, rejecting transparency requirements based on documents while claiming that they “hide nothing.” Clearly, existing scholarly conceptualizations are insufficient for understanding how transparency operates as a value in real‐world political contestation. An analysis o…
Beyond programmatic versus patrimonial politics: Contested conceptions of legitimate distribution in Nigeria
This article argues against the long-standing instinct to read African politics in terms of programmatic versus patrimonial politics. Unlike the assumptions of much of the current quantitative literature, there are substantive political struggles that go beyond 'public goods good, private goods bad'. Scholarly framings serve to obscure the essentially contested nature of what counts as legitimate distribution. This article uses the recent politic…
Flying in the univer-topia: White people on planes, #RhodesMustFall and climate emergency
Sometimes it takes a bucket of shit to clean a university: this is the first lesson of the #FeesMustFall and #RhodesMustFall campaigns, led by black students at the University of Cape Town. In what
Contesting localisation in interfaith peacebuilding in Northern Nigeria
Amidst a ‘local turn’ in peacebuilding, donors have seized on the idea of ‘localising’ peacebuilding programmes. Donors have sought to include actors who have local knowledge and connections in order to make interventions more context-sensitive. Yet programmes premised on the fractiousness of Muslim-Christian relations, as many in northern Nigeria are, are inevitably absorbed into over-arching narratives of global civilisational encounter. How do…
Urban renewal in Ibadan, Nigeria: World class but essentially Yoruba
Urban renewal is central to ‘world-class’ city aspirations on the African continent: demolitions and evictions exemplify the power of the state to restructure urban space, prioritizing elite forms of accumulation and enforcing aesthetic norms of cleanliness, order and modernity. The ubiquity of world-class city-making has been taken by urban studies scholars as evidence of African leaders’ converging on a unitary aspirational urban imaginary. Thi…
The death of political possibility? Reading State and society in Nigeria 40 years on
In this 2019 reboot of his collection of essays from the 1970s, Gavin Williams traces the lingering the impact of colonialism and international capital on Nigeria’s political economy, the shaky development of an indigenous industrial class and the changing role of the state in national development. However, reading the book, it is not clear what such an analysis is for . Is it intended as a diagnosis? An indictment? Williams leftist commitments a…
The Solid Facts of a Life
Good Governance in Nigeria: Rethinking Accountability and Transparency in the Twenty-First Century
Hidden contestation: Valence issues, methodological blindness and the politics of development in Nigeria
Political competition in Africa is often characterized as suffering from a number of deficiencies at the level of political discourse and electoral campaigns, which together paint a picture of an essentially vacuous political life. This article contends that these absences are to some degree methodologically generated. If African political actors appear to have little substance to say about the most pressing social and economic issue of the day, …
Large Grant-Funded Research Centres and Concept Generation in Development Research
Research centres are increasingly an integral part of the institutional and organisational infrastructure of knowledge production in development studies. However, whilst other components of the knowledge production have been problematised for their role in reproducing the hierarchies of the ‘global-north-dominated science and research ecosystem’ (Gebremariam, 2022), centres have received little direct attention. This paper identifies a new genera…
Political science (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Politics (8 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Political economy (4 works) · History (3 works) · History (3 works) · Law (3 works) · State (computer science) (3 works) · Democracy (2 works)