The ‘Societal Turn’. Historicising Future Society

Abstract

Even more than has been the case during the last decades, social-economic historians need to construe the concepts of the economy and the social in a broad sense, to include economies of status and affection, material cultures, social power relations and political ecology. Since the turning of the century, a so-called 'societal turn' is imminent. Demands for re-newed interactions with the social sciences are coming back to the surface. In the last decade, social-economic historians have been incorporating ingredients from new political and cultural history, while analysing sociohistorical processes and related practices both as structure, agency and perception. During the next ten years, the challenge for young researchers exists in bringing this societal turn to a decisive phase, making use of our collaborative research en-vironments and our engagement with societal movements both on a local, regional and global scale.