Paper presented for SEAGA 2010, Hanoi 23 – 26 Nov 2010. Online Proceedings 1 A fresh look at energy debates in Southeast Asia: Contextualising the energy trajectory of Mae Kampong, Thailand Mattijs Smits University of Sydney, Australia Chiang Mai University, Thailand mattijs.smits@sydney.edu.au Abstract Dwindling amounts of fossil fuels, climate change, environmental impacts of energy production and consumption, and other energy-related issues play an increasingly important role in shaping the human and physical landscape of modernisation and development in Southeast Asia. More than a mere technical and economic challenge, these issues ask for a multidisciplinary approach that can connect energy production as well as energy consumption practices. This paper is an attempt to start building such an approach to study the energy transitions in Southeast Asia. The paper starts off from an atypical empirical case study in Thailand, Mae Kampong. This village has moved stepwise from no access to electricity at all, to its on micro-hydropower generator, and finally to a dual system of hydropower and electricity from the grid. By progressively contextualising these changes, a connection can be made with the marginalisation of micro-hydropower in Thailand, centralised versus decentralised electricity production, and converging conventions of modern energy practices. This approach shows that energy transitions cannot be understood as purely local or national processes but are in fact assemblages connected in time and space.