What is the 'Global South' and where is it?

The term 'Global South' marks a new attempt at providing order and meaning in the current global political constellation, replacing the term 'Third World'. But the term 'Global South' is fraught with many ambiguities.

These eight essays explore the possible meanings of this new distinction and assess the advantages and disadvantages of adopting it. They cast a wide exploratory net, looking beyond the dominant politico-economic meaning to how the way that we interpret the world has changed over time and the wider cultural-intellectual meanings.

Key Features
  • Asks whether 'Global South' and 'Global North' are useful for understanding the current global constellation
  • Analyses the recent global transformation that allegedly made the 'Third World' disappear and the 'Global South' emerge
  • Explores how space is used for different but overlapping purposes: to build socio-political concepts, to criticise recent trends in global developments and to develop a normative angle for collective political action
  • Draws on global history, conceptual history, comparative literature, social and political theory, political philosophy and social history to develop a full, interdisciplinary picture of the uses of 'South' and 'North'
Contributors
  • Jacob Dlamini, Princeton University, USA
  • A. Lorena Fuster, University of Barcelona, Spain
  • Nathalie Karagiannis, University of Barcelona, Spain
  • Maxim Khomyakov, Ural Federal University, Ekaterinburg, Russia
  • Aurea Mota, University of Barcelona, Spain
  • Claudio Costa Pinheiro, Rio de Janeiro Federal University, Brazil
  • Gerard Rosich, independent researcher
  • Peter Wagner, Catalan Institute for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) and University of Barcelona, Spain