Towards a Global Social Policy Otherwise: Decoloniality, socialist worldmaking and an ethics of translation

Abstract

In this text, we argue for critical reflexivity regarding ‘global social policy studies’, focusing on the pitfalls of forms of historical presentism and Eurocentrism, not least in terms of a profound silence about colonialism, culminating in a ‘view from above or from nowhere’. We explore the importance of historical legacies of historical socialist worldbuilding projects and the complexities of so-called ‘transition’ in liminal, peripheral, spaces. The text is structured around four interlinked dialogues and reflections: on the nature of our critique of Global Social Policy as an emergent field; on understanding the unfolding dynamics of social policy in the Global East; on the importance of decolonial histories and historiographies as a way of overcoming the profound ‘presentism’ of Global Social Policy and, finally, on the possibilities of articulating a Global Social Policy ‘otherwise’ and an ethics of translation.