Published at a time when the intersection of the climate crisis, forced migration, and colonial reckoning demands renewed critical vocabularies, Emily Yu Zong’s Planetarity from Below offers a timely and carefully framed contribution to contemporary debates in ecocriticism and diaspora studies, one that is more programmatic in its conceptual ambition than its modest tonal register initially suggests. Situated at the intersection of these fields, the book develops the concept of “planetarity from below”. Zong does not seek to redefine planetarity, but rather to recalibrate its analytical scale towards the ecological practices of migrants, refugees, and diasporic communities that are grounded in the material world. The result is a theoretically ambitious study that pays close attention to textual detail. However, it also reveals an underlying tension between its commitment to “thick” ecological and historical grounding, and the necessarily selective use of evidence required to realise this commitment.
The book’s central contribution is its reinerpretation of Gayatri Spivak’s concept of “planetarity.” Rather than keeping the concept largely abstract, Zong emphasises its material dimensions, situating planetary consciousness within embodied and environmentally embedded forms of knowledge. She argues that ecological collectives are formed through the experiences of individuals positioned within borderlands shaped by colonial histories and extractive capitalism. This shift enables the book to highlight the lived and uneven conditions under which planetary thinking emerges, while also setting out a requirement for methodological and evidentiary thickness that the subsequent analyses address unevenly.
This theoretical approach is explored via a series of case studies that draw on literary texts, documentary films, and poetry. A key methodological concept introduced in the book is “thick mobility,” which seeks to move beyond reductive binaries such as mobility and stasis. Instead, Zong considers the affective, ecological, and temporal dimensions of movement, assembling a framework that is suggestive precisely where it resists full systematisation. Her analysis of Gabrielle Brady’s Island of the Hungry Ghosts (2018) is particularly effective in this regard. By combining the migration of red crabs, the ritual practices of Chinese-descended islanders, and therapeutic encounters with detained asylum seekers, Zong provides a carefully layered account of how human and non-human mobilities intersect within a highly regulated border space. The contrast between environmental protection and carceral detention is used to highlight the uneven valuation of life within contemporary border regimes. What emerges here is not simply an account of “thick” mobility, but what might be described as a selectively grounded planetarity, in which conceptual expansiveness consistently exceeds the evidentiary and methodological forms that sustain it.
A similar approach informs the discussion of Behrouz Boochani’s No Friend but the Mountains (2018), which is considered a form of “world-building from within”. Zong examines how Boochani’s writing engages with the material and sensory conditions of detention, drawing on theoretical frameworks such as Deleuzian becoming in the process. The analysis is at its most persuasive when it remains closely aligned with the specific conditions of Manus Island, rather than extending prematurely into more generalised theoretical claims.
One of the book’s strengths is its transnational scope. Zong places Anglophone texts alongside Chinese-language writing, including the work of Zheng Xiaoqiong and Chen Qiufan. This comparative approach challenges the tendency to apply Western theoretical models to non-Western texts without modification. The concept of the “geo-cyborg,” developed through these readings, builds on existing of cyborg discussions by emphasising the material interconnection of human bodies and geological processes in conditions of industrial labour.
The chapter on Merlinda Bobis’ Locust Girl (2015) further illustrates the book’s focus on speculative fiction as a means of ecological contemplation. Zong’s concept of “implosion” redefines climate change as an internally generated process linked to colonial capitalist extraction, rather than an external event. This interpretation provides a valuable alternative to broader accounts of environmental crisis.
The discussion of water as a decolonising medium is one of the book’s more significant contributions. Through her analysis of the work of Kazim Ali and Rita Wong, Zong elaborates on the concept of an “aqueous commons,” which she defines as a relational ethics that resists both commodification and territorialisation. These analyses are notable for their attention to poetic form as well as environmental politics, and they illustrate the book’s broader commitment to linking textual interpretation with ecological concerns.
However, the study’s limitations can be traced back to a central tension between its conceptual and methodological commitments. While the notion of “thickness” foregrounds material and historical specificity, the analysis remains largely anchored in literary and filmic texts, with comparatively limited reference to archival or documentary sources. The result is a discrepancy between the book’s call for “thick” ecological and historical grounding, and its selective use of evidence. This discrepancy produces a form of interpretive circularity, whereby texts are called upon to substantiate the conditions they are simultaneously said to reveal.
Instances where scientific terminology is used in suggestive but not fully differentiated ways also occur, further reflecting the broader tension between conceptual reach and analytical specification. Productive concepts such as “keystone species” and the “Anthropocene” are used, yet their analytical implications are not always fully elaborated. Greater precision in this area would have strengthened the book’s interdisciplinary claims.
Finally, although the book claims to move beyond Euro-American frameworks, its analysis is more consistently grounded in Australian and Anglophone contexts. Other sites of ecological experience in the Global South receive comparatively less sustained attention, which sits somewhat uneasily with the book’s broader planetary claims.
Nevertheless, Planetarity from Below is a substantial contribution to current discussions in environmental humanities, even as it exemplifies the productive tensions of a selectively grounded planetarity. Its emphasis on the material and affective dimensions of migration provides a valuable perspective on rethinking planetary frameworks, and its range of case studies demonstrates a sustained engagement with contemporary literary and cultural production. While some of its claims could have benefited from further evidentiary and conceptual clarification, the book succeeds in raising questions of interest to scholars working in ecocriticism, diaspora studies, and related fields. It will be of particular interest to readers attentive to how literary analysis is being adapted to address the unequal relationship between environmental crisis and migratory experience, even when that relationship remains only partially understood.
Funding:
Funding support for this article was provided by Philosophy and Social Science Foundation of Shaanxi Provincial Department of Education, China (23JZ052), 2025 Shaanxi Undergraduate and Higher Continuing Education Teaching Reform Research Project, China (25BZ091)