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Dr. M.A. (Michaela) Hordijk

Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
GPIO : Governance and Inclusive Development
Photographer: Bram Belloni

Visiting address
  • Nieuwe Achtergracht 166
  • Room number: B4.04
Postal address
  • Postbus 15629
    1001 NC Amsterdam
  • PROFILE

    I am human geographer by training, and specialized in urban issues in developing countries in an early phase of my studies. My main interests are urban poverty, urban environmental management, (participatory) urban governance, participatory budgeting, youth in cities, and ‘participatory action research’. All these themes came together in my PhD research ‘Of Dreams and Deeds: Community Based Environmental Management in Lima, Peru’ (1995-2000), which had a strong action research component. I worked with both youth groups, women’s groups and the neighbourhood organizations in participatory planning and design exercises to improve the environmental conditions in their neighbourhoods. This resulted in the foundation of Aynimundo, supporting community initiatives in peripheral districts in Lima.

    Since 2001 I am assistant professor International Development Studies at the Department Geography, Planning and International Development Research (GPIO) at UvA, and senior researcher at the Governance for Inclusive Development (GID) Programme Group of the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR). As of June 2013 I am guest lecturer at UNESCO-IHE in the water governance Chairgroup. In the past I have worked at the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS), at the Centre for Latin American Education and Documentation (CEDLA) and at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

    Current research

    I am currently adjunct-scientific coordinator of the EU 7th Framework Programme research project Chance2sustain (www.chance2sustain.eu) and co-responsible for workpackage 4, which focuses on urban water governance, participatory risk assessment and inclusive scenario building for climate change. Chance2Sustain is a research project examining how governments and citizens in Indian, South African, Peruvian and Brazilian cities with differing patterns of urban economic growth make use of participatory (or integrated) spatial knowledge management to direct urban governance towards more sustainable development.

    Current teaching

    I am director of the Research Master’s International Development Studies at the Graduate School of Social Sciences of the UvA, and teach courses on research methodology and urban resilience. In the past I have been teaching at both undergraduate and graduate level. This included courses on urban poverty alleviation, poverty and development, introduction to development studies, cities in the global and urban environmental management. I have led the curriculum development of the Master’s International Development Studies at the UvA, and participated in the curriculum development and teaching at the master’s programmes in Urban Environmental Management at the Universidad de Ingenería in Lima, the Universidad Nacional San Augustin in Arequipa and the Universidad Privada Antenor Orrego (Trujillo), partners in the NUFFIC funded programme PEGUP. In this programme I taught courses on urban environmental management, local agenda 21 processes, research methods and conducted thesis seminars.

     

     

     

  • Research: UNHIDE

    The urban waterscapes in most cities in the Global South contrast starkly with the idealized portrayals of the modern networked city. In such a city one service provider delivers standardized and high-technology services to all inhabitants within the city boundaries. Rather, the prevailing urban waterscape is fragmented into a variety of diverse service configurations. These service modalities or configurations consist of different service provision activities (abstraction, treatment, distribution, storage), involve a variety of different actors in these different stages and are subject to a range of bureaucratic and socially-embedded institutions and social relations which shape behavior of the actors.  State-led or regulated water utilities serve between 40% and 70% of the urban population (Nickson, 2002; Mwanza, 2005). Where water utilities in the global South do not provide services, the water market is fragmented into a large variety of small-scale water providers (Matshine et al., 2008), which operate for profit or for philanthropic reasons (Clark, 1995; Solo, 1999; Brinkerhoff, 2002; Kariuki and Schwartz, 2005; Batley, 2006). In describing this fragmentation of the water services sector Bakker (2003: 337) has used the analogy of an archipelagos of “spatially separated but linked ‘islands’ of networked supply in the urban fabric”.

     

     

     

    The main overarching research objective is to explore how the urban waterscape is produced and transformed by focusing on the interaction of ecological, technological and social processes that shape this waterscape. For more information on the UNHIDE project see  

    https://www.unesco-ihe.org/node/15873

     

     

     

  • Publications

    2021

    2020

    • Kuipers, E. H. C., Desportes, I., & Hordijk, M. (2020). Of locals and insiders: A “localized” humanitarian response to the 2017 mudslide in Mocoa, Colombia? Disaster Prevention and Management, 29(3), 352-364. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1108/DPM-12-2018-0384 [details]

    2019

    2018

    • Peek, O., Hordijk, M., & d'Auria, V. (2018). User-based design for inclusive urban transformation: Learning from ‘informal’ and ‘formal’ dwelling practices in Guayaquil, Ecuador. International Journal of Housing Policy, 18(2), 204-232. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/19491247.2016.1265268 [details]
    • Velzeboer, L., Hordijk, M., & Schwartz, K. (2018). Water is life in a life without water: Power and everyday water practices in Lilongwe, Malawi. Habitat International, 73, 119-128. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2017.11.006 [details]

    2017

    • Rusca, M., Alda-Vidal, C., Hordijk, M., & Kral, N. (2017). Bathing without water, and other stories of everyday hygiene practices and risk perception in urban low-income areas: The case of Lilongwe, Malawi. Environment and Urbanization, 29(2), 533-550. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956247817700291 [details]

    2016

    • Arends, I. S. M., & Hordijk, M. A. (2016). Physical and Virtual Public Spaces for Youth: The Importance of Claiming Spaces in Lima, Peru. In K. Nairn, P. Kraftl, & T. Skelton (Eds.), Space, Place and Environment (pp. 227-247). (Geographies of Children and Young People; Vol. 3). Springer Reference. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-044-5_16, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4585-90-3_16-1 [details]
    • Desportes, I., Waddell, J., & Hordijk, M. (2016). Improving flood risk governance through multi-stakeholder collaboration: a case study of Sweet Home informal settlement, Cape Town. South African Geographical Journal, 98(1), 61-83. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/03736245.2015.1052842 [details]
    • Hordijk, M., Roy, M., Hulme, D., & Cawood, S. (2016). Introduction. In M. Roy, S. Cawood, M. Hordijk, & D. Hulme (Eds.), Urban Poverty and Climate Change: Life in the slums of Asia, Africa and Latin America (pp. 3-12). (Routledge advances in climate change research). Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781317506980/chapters/10.4324%2F9781315716435-1 [details]
    • Hordijk, M., van den Brandeler, F., & Filippi, M. E. (2016). Facing the Floods: Community Responses to increased rainfall in Guarulhos, Brazil and Arequipa, Peru. In M. Roy, S. Cawood, M. Hordijk, & D. Hulme (Eds.), Urban Poverty and Climate Change: Life in the Slums of Asia, Africa and Latin America (pp. 130-146). (Routledge advances in climate change research). Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781317506980/chapters/10.4324%2F9781315716435-8 [details]
    • Hulme, D., Roy, M., Hordijk, M., & Cawood, S. (2016). Conclusion: Reconceptualising Adaptation and Comparing Experiences. In M. Roy, S. Cawood, M. Hordijk, & D. Hulme (Eds.), Urban Poverty and Climate Change: Life in the Slums of Asia, Africa and Latin America (pp. 257-265). (Routledge advances in climate change research). Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781317506980/chapters/10.4324%2F9781315716435-15 [details]
    • Roy, M., Hulme, D., Hordijk, M., & Cawood, S. (2016). The lived experience of urban poverty and climate change: impacts and adaptation in slums. In M. Roy, S. Cawood, M. Hordijk, & D. Hulme (Eds.), Urban Poverty and Climate Change: Life in the slums of Asia, Africa and Latin America (pp. 13-35). (Routledge advances in climate change research). Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781317506980/chapters/10.4324%2F9781315716435-2 [details]
    • Strauch, L., & Hordijk, M. (2016). Settlement story 4.5: The role of knowledge and information management in organizing collective resistance to a mega-project in Lima. In V. Dupont, D. Jordhus-Lier, C. Sutherland, & E. Braathen (Eds.), The politics of slums in the global South: urban informality in Brazil, India, South Africa and Peru (pp. 107-108). (Routledge studies in cities and development). Abingdon: Routledge. [details]
    • Strauch, L., & Hordijk, M. (2016). Settlement story 6.4: Collective contestation of the Vía Parque Rímac mega-project from the low-income settlements along the river Rímac in Lima. In V. Dupont, D. Jordhus-Lier, C. Sutherland, & E. Braathen (Eds.), The politics of slums in the global South: urban informality in Brazil, India, South Africa and Peru (pp. 163-168). (Routledge studies in cities and development). Abingdon: Routledge. [details]
    • Sutherland, C., Hordijk, M., & Scott, D. (2016). Emerging practices of community adaptation within innovative water and climate change policies in Durban, South Africa. In M. Roy, S. Cawood, M. Hordijk, & D. Hulme (Eds.), Urban Poverty and Climate Change: Life in the Slums of Asia, Africa and Latin America (pp. 55-72). (Routledge advances in climate change research). Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781317506980/chapters/10.4324%2F9781315716435-4 [details]

    2015

    2014

    • Filippi, M. E., Hordijk, M., Alegría, J., & Denis Rojas, J. (2014). Knowledge integration: a step forward? Continuities and changes in Arequipa’s water governance system. Environment and Urbanization, 26(2), 526-546. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956247814539233 [details]
    • Hordijk, M., Miranda Sara, L., & Sutherland, C. (2014). Resilience, Transition or Transformation? A comparative analysis of changing water governance systems in four Southern cities. Environment and Urbanization, 26(1), 130-146. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956247813519044 [details]
    • Sutherland, C., Hordijk, M., Lewis, B., Meyer, C., & Buthelezi, S. (2014). Water and sanitation provision in eThekwini Municipality: a spatially differentiated approach. Environment and Urbanization, 26(2), 469-488. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956247814544871 [details]
    • van den Brandeler, F., Hordijk, M., von Schönfeld, K., & Sydenstricker-Neto, J. (2014). Decentralization, participation and deliberation in water governance: a case study of the implications for Guarulhos, Brazil. Environment and Urbanization, 26(2), 489-504. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956247814544423 [details]

    2013

    • Hordijk, M. (2013). Being young and urban: changing patterns of youth involvement in local environmental action in Lima, Peru. Local Environment, 18(3), 396-412. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2012.738654 [details]
    • de Bruine, E., Hordijk, M., Tamagno, C., & Sánchez Arimborgo, Y. (2013). Living between multiple sites: transnational family relations from the perspective of elderly non-migrants in Junín, Peru. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 39(3), 483-500. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2013.733865 [details]

    2012

    • Hordijk, M. (2012). Citizenship, local government and democracy. In N. Pouw, & I. Baud (Eds.), Local governance and poverty in developing nations (pp. 194-213). (Routledge studies in development and society; No. 31). Routledge. [details]

    2011

    • Hordijk, M., & Baud, I. (2011). Inclusive adaptation: linking participatory learning and knowledge managament to urban resilience. In K. Otto-Zimmermann (Ed.), Resilient cities: cities and adaptation to climate change: proceedings of the Global Forum 2010 (pp. 111-121). (Local Sustainability; Vol. 1). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0785-6_11 [details]

    2009

    2008

    • Baud, I. S. A., & Hordijk, M. (2008). Verstedelijking van de wereldbevolking: De stille revolutie. In A. J. Dietz, F. den Hertog, & H. van der Wusten (Eds.), Van natuurlandschap tot risicomaatschappij. De geografie van de relatie tussen mens en milieu (pp. 47-55). Amsterdam University Press. [details]

    2018

    2016

    2014

    • Miranda Sara, L., Hordijk, M., & Khan, S. (2014). Actors’ capacities to address water vulnerabilities in metropolitan cities facing climate change: exploring actor network configurations, discourse coalitions, power relations and scenario building processes as social contstructions of knowledge for multi-scalar water governance. (WP4 thematic report; No. 3). EADI/Chance2Sustain. http://www.chance2sustain.eu/10.0.html [details]

    2011

    2010

    2009

    2013

    • Brandeler, F., Hordijk, M. A., Miranda Sara, L., Sutherland, C., Sydenstricker-Neto, J., & Batata, A. (2013). Convergence or Divergence in Metropolitan Water Governance: Comparing Changes in Guarulhos (Brazil), Lima (Peru) and Durban (South Africa). Paper presented at Paper presented at the 4th Encontro Internacional da Gobernanca da Agua, Sao Paulo, Brazil. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2Fen6yI9RB8MnhfdWxMdVlacTQ/image?pagenumber=1&w=738
    • Desportes, I., Waddell, J., & Hordijk, M. A. (2013). Increasing resilience to flood risk through multi-stakeholder collaboration: a case study of Sweet Home informal settlement, Cape Town. Paper presented at Paper presented at the CLIMURB Conference: Living in Low-income Urban Settlements in an Era of Climate Change: Processes, Practices, Policies and Politics., .
    • Hordijk, M. A., Brandeler, F., & Filippi, M. E. (2013). Facing the Floods: Community Responses to Increased Rainfall in Guarulhos (Brazil) and Arequipa (Peru). Paper presented at Paper presented at the CLIMURB conference: Living in Low-income Urban Settlements in an Era of Climate Change: Processes, Practices, Policies and Politics, .
    • Sutherland, C., Lewis, B., Hordijk, M., Meyer, C., & Scott, D. (2013). Community adaptation and innovative water and climate change policies in Durban (South Africa): engaging with the relational spaces of abstract planning and everyday lived worlds. Abstract from ClimUrb International Workshop: Living in Low-income Urban Settlements in an Era of Climate Change: Processes, Practices, Policies and Politics. https://notices.ukzn.ac.za/content/GetFile.aspx?id=5999

    2011

    Prize / grant

    • Hordijk, M. & Tasan-Kok, T. (2020). Behaviour and Transitions: 'Stepping Out: Accelerating deep transdisciplinary and interprofessional learning for innovative actions, interventions and strategies of deep sustainable transitions in port area development’.
    • Hordijk, M., Grin, J. & Naus, J. (2020). Behaviour and Transitions: 'From adaptation and mitigation to regeneration. Transforming behaviour by changing the recursive relationship between behaviour and transition-relevant systems (TransB).
    • van de Kamp, L., Hordijk, M. A., Grin, J. & Giezen, M. (2017). CUS Seed Grant XL: Co-creatietraject ‘Kennisdeling in Living Lab Buiksloterham’.

    2023

    • Costa de Barros, E. (2023). Water governance in Brazil: The need to share water in the anthropocene. [Thesis, fully internal, Universiteit van Amsterdam]. [details]

    2021

    • Miranda Sara, L. R. (2021). Knowledge building in configuring metropolitan water governance: Water-related climate risk scenarios, governance networks, concertacion processes and territorialities in Lima, Peru. [Thesis, fully internal, Universiteit van Amsterdam]. [details]
    This list of publications is extracted from the UvA-Current Research Information System. Questions? Ask the library or the Pure staff of your faculty / institute. Log in to Pure to edit your publications. Log in to Personal Page Publication Selection tool to manage the visibility of your publications on this list.
  • Ancillary activities
    • No ancillary activities