[ANU Pacific.Institute] Pacific HDR seminar: Hugo Temby Renewable Energy in the Pacific

[George Carter]

Dear Members of Pacific Institite.

You are cordially invited to final PhD Seminar by Hugo Temby of CSS and CAP.

Title: Remaking renewable energy in the Blue Pacific
Timings: 10th October 2025, 3pm to 4.30pm
In Person Venue: Seminar Room D, HC Coombs Building, 9 Fellows Rd
Or Online Zoom link: https://anu.zoom.us/j/89053337014?pwd=lLJusoiW0Ps0tsYlp90zjxpQ8jlaGj.1
Meeting ID: 890 5333 7014
Password: 233473
Abstract: Energy shapes our lives but is largely invisible. Recently, it has become a pressing concern for policymakers, who are engineering an urgent transition to renewable energy as a solution to worsening climate change. In the Blue Pacific, governments have set a series of increasingly ambitious climate targets over the past decade, with development partners increasing support for renewables in response. Yet the introduction of the new technology has been uneven: targets have been missed, and several projects have failed or contributed to harms. The social dimensions of renewables have, meanwhile, been largely ignored by researchers, especially in the Pacific. Hugo’s interdisciplinary doctoral thesis, Remaking renewable energy in the Blue Pacific, contributes to this gap. Drawing on Laura Nader’s call for ‘upwards’ anthropology, the thesis explores three case studies, including a regional energy policy conference in Vanuatu, a large electric transport project in Sāmoa, and a smaller, Pacific-led effort to develop an alternative battery chemistry. Policy-relevant findings include, first, that Pacific practitioners are actively contesting harmful approaches to renewable energy. Second, renewables projects can be understood as moves in wider serious games. Third, more equitable renewables projects are already being designed and delivered in the Pacific, underpinned by inclusive cosmologies, expansive conceptions of sustainability, and fresh approaches to resourcing, governance, and practice.

Biography Hugo is a PhD candidate in energy anthropology at ANU’s School of Engineering. His research aims to support a socially sustainable energy transition and draws on 10 years’ prior experience in government managing large climate and energy projects.
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Begin forwarded message:

From: Dewi Resminingayu <Dewi.Resminingayu at anu.edu.au<mailto:Dewi.Resminingayu at anu.edu.au>>
Subject: [Anthropgrad] HDR seminar: Hugo Temby's Pre-sub Seminar
Date: 6 October 2025 at 12:15:35 pm AEDT
To: "anthropgrad at anu.edu.au<mailto:anthropgrad at anu.edu.au>" <anthropgrad at anu.edu.au<mailto:anthropgrad at anu.edu.au>>

Dear Anthropgraders,
Please join us for Hugo Temby's Pre-sub Seminar on Friday, 10th October 2025. The presentation will take place in hybrid format. Details are as follows:

Timings: 10th October 2025, 3pm to 4.30pm
Venue: Seminar Room D, HC Coombs Building, 9 Fellows Rd
Zoom link: https://anu.zoom.us/j/89053337014?pwd=lLJusoiW0Ps0tsYlp90zjxpQ8jlaGj.1
Meeting ID: 890 5333 7014
Password: 233473

Title
Remaking renewable energy in the Blue Pacific (final PhD presentation)

Abstract
Energy influences contemporary worlds and future possibilities yet is largely invisible. Recently, however, it has become a concern for policymakers who, in the face of worsening climate change are engineering an urgent transition to renewable energy without always weighing benefits against costs. In the Blue Pacific, governments have set a series of increasingly ambitious climate targets over the past decade, with development partners increasing support for renewables in response. Yet the introduction of the new technology has been uneven: targets have been missed, and several projects have failed or contributed to harm. Meanwhile, the social dimensions of renewable energy – like other aspects of climate mitigation – are understudied by the broader research community.
Laura Nader once asked in an earlier ethnography of energy professionals: ‘What do people think is possible? Why are people so tightly constrained?’ Hugo Temby’s interdisciplinary thesis, Remaking renewable energy in the Blue Pacific, asks similar questions of the energy professionals working in the Pacific, before asking how projects might be approached differently, to better support Pacific priorities. In addressing these questions, the thesis explores three case studies, including a regional energy policy conference in Vanuatu, a large electric transport project in Sāmoa, and a smaller, Pacific-led effort to develop an alternative battery chemistry. These cases are supplemented by interviews with 20 regional energy experts and a close reading of more than 40 energy policy documents.
The thesis makes three main findings. First, practitioners are actively contesting hegemonic and harmful approaches to renewable energy in the region through various techniques of resistant and re-existent reframing. Second, reframing efforts can be understood as moves in wider serious games. And while some of these games reproduce modernist policy hauntologies, others prefigure an alternative, more caring approach to renewables implementation. Third, antihegemonic, and more equitable, renewables projects are already being designed and delivered in the Pacific, underpinned by inclusive cosmologies, expansive conceptions of sustainability, and fresh approaches to resourcing, governance, and practice.
This presentation is Hugo’s final PhD program milestone.

Bio
Hugo is a PhD candidate in energy anthropology at the ANU’s School of Engineering. Hugo’s aim is to better understand both mainstream and more inclusive approaches to the design and delivery of climate and energy projects in the region. Hugo’s research also draws on his 10 years’ prior professional experience managing large-scale climate, energy, and development projects with DFAT, AusAID, and the ACT Government’s Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate.
Hugo is supervised by:
Assoc Prof Sverre Molland (chair)
Dr Hedda Ransan-Cooper (primary supervisor)
Prof Katerina Teaiwa (associate supervisor)
Assoc Prof Anita Latai-Niusulu (external supervisor – National University of Samoa)

For more information on the upcoming Anthropology HDR Friday seminar presentations, please see the following link:

ANTH HDR Seminars 2025 - Google Sheets<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1S9Rz5H4Aw_PjAsuYOm1JCpLOmFFJ0rBst7YZnrPOjXk/edit?gid=875732642#gid=875732642>
Best wishes,
Dewi


Dewi Resminingayu
PhD student in Anthropology

School of Culture History and Language
College of Asia and the Pacific
HC Coombs Building, 9 Fellows Road
The Australian National University
Canberra  ACT 2601
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