Seni is a Tongan priest in the Anglican Diocese of Polynesia. He is currently a residential scholarship student at The College of St John the Evangelist (Auckland), and doing his doctoral research via Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Pacific Studies.
Seni’s thesis title is Lotu and Felupe: Reimagining a Gender-Inclusive Approach to Climate Resilience in Tonga. His research attempts to frame climate change and responses to it from the position of some churches (lotu) in Tonga. More specifically it uses the framework of felupe, a Tongan concept, which means ‘holding things together,’ to understand how lotu respond to climate change at a time when governments and other global, regional and national institutions are also involved in different ways with the same issue. Of significance here is how the thesis analyses the indigenous notion of felupe from the viewpoint of ordinary Tongan women and their experience, as a way of creating a gendered approach to a unified response to climate change.
Prior to this, Seni was a Tongan navy officer. He has worked in various positions, both in the government and private sector in Tonga. He is married to 'Ana and they have three girls Edwina, Anne Marie, and Siteifania.
