ABSTRACT
In the 1990s sociology, like many other social sciences, underwent a global turn, with an explosion of interest in social dynamics beyond the borders of nation states. This was partly driven by a wide sense, growing through the 1980s, that the social world was changing in ways that demanded new concepts and priorities. A planetary social science would be aware of how dynamic features of planets at once make possible and also condition human life. Such a ‘planetary posthumanism’ would situate what are taken to be the distinctive features of human social life – society, language, meaning, cognition, action, technology – within a more comprehensive picture of how new forms, powers and kinds of relation arise under planetary conditions. As social scientists are increasingly arguing, we need to develop a 3D imaginary for the social sciences.
