1This dissertation is a holistic study of energy as it exists in the Nepali town of Lubhu and is interwoven with everyday life there. Based on an 18-month period of fieldwork, I follow the distribution and consumption of electricity, gas and petrol/diesel in Lubhu. Framing this as ‘energopolitics’ refers not just to formal energy policy and governance but also to differences in access to energy and the labour needed to manage energy shortages. The dissertation starts off with two propositions: that energy is fundamentally an enabler and that energy supply (distribution and consumption) is ‘a difference that makes a difference’. Energy, as an enabler, intersects with countless areas of life because people do not consume energy directly, but rather the things that energy makes possible. The task of anthropology is to understand what and how energy enables or disables. ‘Energy anthropology’ helps reveal the varied socio-cultural, socio-economic and political structures that both undergird and impinge on energy transitions.

2Analysis of the drastic fuel shortage throughout Nepal in 2015 due to an ‘undeclared blockade’ of energy imports to Nepal by India reveals that India has used this ploy over the last decades for political means. This shows how ‘energopower’ can be used to undermine another country’s sovereignty. Yet the ways in which fuel shortages have been dealt with in Lubhu reveal ‘energy flexibility’ to be a relational asset and skill set that go far beyond the technical characteristics of infrastructures and the energy supply. Engaging with both employees and customers at the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) office in Lubhu not only reveals how the state monopoly on electricity distribution enables (social) power over its citizens, but also that this conversely opens up avenues for citizens to make demands on the state. Load shedding (planned power outages) gradually ended in the Kathmandu Valley as of late 2016. Continued scepticism towards the NEA and an absence of any major changes in electricity use after load shedding had ended shows that the electricity supply depends not only on the bare wires and poles of the grid, but also on trust (bishwaas). Unreliable infrastructures reflect an unreliable state. Conversely, reliable infrastructures may produce relational capacities such as trust, in addition to services such as electricity distribution.

3Lubhu is undergoing an ‘energy transition’, yet it is a patchy and uneven one – the results of which are much less predictable than narratives on modernisation might claim. More importantly, the increase in the use of electric appliances does not obviate the need for labour, but rather displaces it, resulting in what might be called ‘energofetishism’. As of 2020, Nepal may have been on the cusp of entering into a dream scenario of national hydropower generation, no doubt providing a major surplus of electricity in the next few years. But who will benefit and how? Nepal’s electrification rate has recently soared, mainly through renewable installations that are not connected to the national grid. Thus, increased national grid supply is likely to accentuate differences in energy access between rural and urban areas, and any major transition from fossil fuels to electricity will depend on greater trust as well as on the capacity of the electricity supply.

4To receive a digital copy of the dissertation, please contact the author at: mikkel.vindegg@cicero.oslo.no.