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The process of energy transitions is complex. It involves co-evolutions of socio-technological systems, economic and cultural values, and ambitions of heterogenous actors (see Hinchliffe, 1996; Latour, 1993; Smits, 2015). The insight into these ‘things’ and ‘humans’ is thus essential. Yet, the analysis should be extended to the spatiality and the politics of their interactions. Actors in socially advanced positions may construct new spaces of renewable energy extractions by mobilizing knowledge, technologies, resources and governing practices (Koch & Tynkkynen, 2021; Loloum et al., 2021; Dal Maso, 2022; McEwan, 2017; Sneddon, 2012; Swyngedouw, 2015). And, the space-making process differs in country and region. Those ‘things’ to be mobilized are embedded in specific social and political systems (Bridge, 2018).

Against this conceptual background, this session attempts to examine processes of renewable energy development with a focus on Southeast Asia. It discusses what conceptual and methodological insights can be elicited from the empirical cases. Social science energy research on Southeast Asia has attended largely to implications of state-led hydropower projects (Götz & Middleton, 2020; Hirsch, 2016; Smits, 2015; Sovacool & Bulan, 2011) but less to issues of other renewables. In contrast to this lack of scholarly scrutiny, the region has witnessed augmentation of qualitatively different ‘power’ circulations (see Bangkok Post, 2020; Do & Burke, 2022; NIKKEI Asia, 2022; Pacific Light Power Pte Ltd, 2021). This raises questions: through what spatializing strategies are the ‘power’ production circuits deployed in far-flung sites of the agriculturally dominant region of Southeast Asia, and to what extent do socio-technical and financial systems introduced for the deployment destabilize or rather reinforce existing ‘power’ systems?

These inquiries into politically contested processes are crucial in the examination of energy productions in Southeast Asia. In the region, capitalist logic and political exception often “interact in experimental systems of ruling that always manipulate existing political space and operationalize new scales to be invested with economic or political value” (Ong, 2008, p.120). While manipulating the space, certain groups and zones are differentiated and inserted differently into the capitalist logic (Ong, 2000). This process leads to spatially-uneven land acquisitions and dispossessions (see Kenney-Lazar et al., 2018; Obidzinski et al., 2012; Yenneti et al., 2016).

Considering these Southeast Asian contexts, this session attempts to address the following questions:

1. How are ‘renewable energy transitions’ politically contested in Southeast Asia?
2. How and to what extent are sociospatial and material ‘power’ circuits reshaped in the processes?
3. What conceptual and methodological approaches have enabled the investigations?
4. What insights can be elicited from empirical findings and contributed to the conceptualization of ‘(renewable) energy transition’?



References

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Götz, J. M., & Middleton, C. (2020). Ontological politics of hydrosocial territories in the Salween River basin, Myanmar/Burma. Political Geography, 78, 102115.
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Yenneti, K., Day, R., & Golubchikov, O. (2016). Spatial justice and the land politics of renewables: Dispossessing vulnerable communities through solar energy mega-projects. Geoforum, 76, 90–99.

Non-Presenting Participants