Researcher
Rossella Alba is a postdoctoral researcher at the Geography Department and at IRI THESys. She researches socio-ecological inequalities taking governance and infrastructure as analytical entry points. She is particularly intrigued by watery spaces including rivers, urban water supply systems, dams and, more recently, coastal and marine waters. In her work, she brings together theories and concepts in resource geography, infrastructural studies and feminist Science and Technology Studies (STS). She is interested in reflexivity in methodological approaches – such as numerical modelling – and in experimenting with novel research methodologies for inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration to foster just transformations.
At IRI THESys she is the scientific coordinator of the “Water security for whom?” project (funded by the Volkswagen Foundation). As part of the project, she investigates the role of models and modelers in (re)configuring socio-ecological inequalities and water-food-energy relations in the context of multi-purpose dams in Colombia.
Prior to joining IRI THESys, Rossella was a research assistant in the Waterpower project (funded by the BMBF) at the Governance and Sustainability Lab at Trier University, where she carried out her PhD research developing a situated analysis of socio-spatial inequalities in water distributions in Accra, Ghana. She was also a research assistant at the Geography Department at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and a master’s student at Wageningen University. She has research experience in Ghana, Mozambique, Ethiopia and Italy.
Research Interests
- Infrastructure and governance practices
- Critical resource geographies and (urban) political ecology
- Water and politics
- Situated modelling (working group)
Project
Controversial tools: researching modelling practices in water governance, Constructive Advance Training programme 2022-2025, Network European Institutes for Advanced Studies, PI.
Selected Publications
Klein, A., Unverzagt, K., Alba, R., Donges, J. F., Hertz, T., Krueger, T., et al. (2024). From situated knowledges to situated modelling: a relational framework for simulation modelling. Ecosystems and People, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2024.2361706
Alba, R., and Kanesu, R. (2024). Working with water: a dialogue on care, infrastructure and labour. Territory, Politics, Governance, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2024.2313584
Menga, F., Rusca M., and Alba, R. (2023). Philantrocapitalism and the re-making of global water charity. Geoforum, 144. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103788
Flores Fernández, C. and Alba, R. (2023). Water or mineral resource? Legal interpretations and hydrosocial configurations of lithium mining in Chile. Frontiers in Water. https://doi.org/10.3389/frwa.2023.1075139
Krueger, T. and Alba, R. (2022). Ontological and epistemological commitments in interdisciplinary water research: Uncertainty as an entry point for reflexion. Frontiers in Water. https://doi.org/10.3389/frwa.2022.1038322
Alba, R., Kooy, M. and Bruns A. (2020). Conflicts, cooperation and experimentation: An Urban Political Ecology analysis of heterogeneous water infrastructure in Accra. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, online first.
Alba, R., Klepp S. and Bruns A. (2020). Environmental justice and the politics of climate change adaptation – the case of Venice. Geographica Helvetica, 75(4), 363-368.
Alba, R., and Bolding A. (2016). IWRM Avant la Lettre? Four Key Episodes in the Policy Articulation of IWRM in Downstream Mozambique. Water Alternatives, 9(3), 549-568.
Alba, R., Bolding, A., and Ducrot, R. (2016). The politics of Water Payments and Stakeholder Participation in the Limpopo River Basin, Mozambique. Water Alternatives, 9(3), 569-587.
Bolding, A. and Alba, R. (2016). Viewpoint – IWRM and I: A Reflexive Travelogue of the Flows and Practices Research Team. Water Alternatives, 9(3), 662-678.
Mehta, L., Alba, R., Bolding, A., Denby, K., Derman, B., Hove, T., et al. (2014). The politics of IWRM in Southern Africa. International Journal of Water Resources Development, 30(3), 528–542.
Media
IRI THESys: HU-Wissenschaftler:innen werfen einen kritischen Blick auf hydrologische Modelle (PDF)
Was Wasserkrisen uns lehren können. Gespräch zum Weltwassertag. Altes Land, 22.03.2023
Sie erforscht die Macht des Wassers. Buxtehude Tageblatt, 27.10.2023
