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.