Conclusions

The present volume examines how the global challenges debate is understood, defined, and reimagined from a plurality of viewpoints that give voice and visibility to differences in understanding vulnerability, agency and responsibility to the most pressing issue of the present. What does decentring exactly entail for the study of global challenges? Decentring means critically deconstructing the assumptions and starting points informing this debate, as well as re-examining how centre–periphery relations constitute them. The volume critiques the conventional understanding of key notions informing discussions on power transitions, security, and violence, highlighting how the current frameworks often overlook what represents a challenge and for whom. We build on a variety of challenges that span from the epistemic violence of international law and liberal international order, to the material violence of extractivism and post-industrial work flexibility, inequality in vaccine distribution, power transition, turbulences in security, and cooperation. Our contributors question our “we” when thinking about contemporary global challenges, and interpellate the notions and connotations of globality, often taken for granted in this debate. By doing so, they offer a radically pluralistic understanding of globality and global challenges, drawing on disciplinary experiences ranging from geography to international law, politics, international relations, and area studies, as well as epistemic perspectives that range from decolonial to poststructuralist, critical realism, and postcolonial approaches.