About the GDC

Network of scholars from across the world

The Global (De)Centre (GDC) is a platform that brings together a growing network of scholars from across the world who are committed to producing new knowledge and using different epistemologies and methods by working collaboratively with a broad range of partners. The intellectual questions that unite us fall under the broad umbrella of migrating people and migrating cultures. We want to create new conversations that more effectively capture contemporary sites of encounters between mobile and non-mobile people of different races, ethnicities, religions, and sexualities; the national and transnational institutions and cultural products and representations that arise in response; and to identify policies and politics that can create more successful diverse societies.

Doing so requires going beyond post-colonial and critical theory by bringing in new ideas and epistemologies from around the world and by moving beyond parts of the Euro-American and critical canons while refashioning others. We are not suggesting throwing the whole baby out with the bathwater. But, from our perspective, mainstream, post-colonial, cultural studies, and critical theories have not been decolonized nor decentered enough. More importantly, they stop too often at deconstruction without charting a path toward reconstruction and beyond.

Read the Global DeCentre Manifesto
How do I decenter that?

Team

Peggy Levitt

Wellesley College

Claire Hsu

Asia Art Archive

Maurice Crul

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Olívia M. Gomes da Cunha

Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Adrian Favell

University of Leeds and Sciences Po, Paris

Halleh Ghorashi

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Michael Okyerefo

University of Ghana

André Keet

University of the Free State

Carola Suárez-Orozco

UCLA

Steven Vertovec

Max Planck Institute

Miriyam Aouragh

University of Oxford

Jens Schneider

Universität Osnabrück

Philip Kasinitz

City University of New York

Anna Triandafyllidou

Ryerson University

Janine Dahinden

University of Neuchâtel

Rosa Aparicio

Ortega y Gasset University

Xiang Biao

University of Oxford

Frans Lelie

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Ali Konyali

University of Osnabrück

Yasemin Soysal

University of Essex

Federico Besserer

Metropolitan Autonomous University

Marina de Regt

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Ismintha Waldring

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Cláudio Pinheiro

Rio de Janeiro Federal University

Mary Tupan-Wenno

Center for Diversity Policy

Kirsten Scheid

American University of Beirut

Liliana Suárez-Navaz

Autonomous University at Madrid

Elif Keskiner

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Handerson Joseph

Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

Michi Knecht

University of Bremen

Bo-Seon Shim

Yonsei University

Pal Nyiri

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Silvina Merenson

Nacional University of San Martín

Simon Kofi Appiah

University of Cape Coast

Nadia von Maltzahn

Orient-Institut Beirut

Vinicius Kauê Ferreira

Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Imtiaz Ahmed

University of Dhaka

Ali Qadir

Tampere University

Patrick Flores

University of the Philippines

Michalinos Zembylas

Open University of Cyprus and Nelson Mandela University, South Africa

Felisa Tibbitts

Utrecht University and Teachers College of Columbia University

Olga Sezneva

University of Amsterdam

May Al-Dabbagh

New York University Abu Dhabi & New York University

Claire Ellis

Ryerson University

Laura Haddad

Institute for Social Geography and Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies (IMIS), Osnabrück University, Germany

Kwok Kian Chow

National Gallery Singapore and International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CIMAM)

Sonja Mejcher-Atassi

American University of Beirut