The Non-human in Social Science III: Past Trajectories – Future Prospects conference aspire at becoming a meeting of scholars and students interested in the non-human in social science, its scope, potential and role it has been playing in (re)shaping current scientific endeavor.

One of the main assets of the non-human can be seen in its influence on gradual dissolving of once settled binaries and dichotomies (nature/culture, nature/society, subject/object, human/animal, human/machine, etc.). Under the spell of various non-humans, hybridity has been embraced and become one of the main prisms for current scholarly understanding of the world. Due to the (attention paid to the) non-human(s), the world has become more complex. But what has been happening to social sciences with their limits having been pushed and boundaries gradually dissolving? And where the non-human can lead the hybridizing social science?

The 2012 conference is here to address these and related issues. Based on the two preceding conferences, the topic of the non-human will be divided into three basic thematic sections:

• plants and animals
• material culture and spaces
• technologies and institutions

Apart from directly addressing these issues on an empirical level, we welcome papers devoted to developing epistemological, theoretical as well as methodological understanding of the non-human in contemporary social sciences, as well as papers dealing with the issues of changes in the scholarly attitude and approach to the non-human, presenting novel ways of scholarly work rooted in the engagement with the non-human topic, and reflecting the problems arising from such endeavor.

The papers presented at the conference should not exceed 15-20 minutes in length.