global north and global south essay

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The challenges facing the global south: perspectives from the Philippines

• Charmaine G. Misalucha 1  

Bandung: Journal of the Global South volume  2 , Article number:  7 ( 2015 ) Cite this article

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A Publisher's Erratum to this article was published on 29 June 2016

International Relations scholarship highlights the differences of the countries in the global south. The postcolonial histories of countries herein give rise to unique experiences that push them to consolidate their states at the soonest time possible even as they are inextricably integrated in an international system that is biased towards the great powers. This double pressure either makes or break a state, and it is this tension that is the focus of the special issue. This concluding article offers a bird’s-eye view of the nuances of the differences of the global south and the problems associated with it. I argue that while the differences may indeed be unique, not seeing beyond those is problematic. In line with this, I first acknowledge the differences the global south represents. I look at how the International Relations concepts of state, rational choice, and the international system are seen as inapplicable to the workings of the global south, and how this “misfit” is detected not only in the dynamics of Philippine foreign policy, but also in its relationships with various regional powers like the United States and China. I then turn to the problems associated with seeing only the differences of the global south. I highlight the concepts of mimicry and hybridity before examining the cases of the Philippines’ labor conditions, human security for migrant workers, and disability-related issues. In all these, caution, mindfulness, and the need for dialogue are therefore called for.

International Relations scholarship highlights the differences of the countries in the global south. The postcolonial histories of countries herein give rise to unique experiences that push them to consolidate their states at the soonest time possible even as they are inextricably integrated in an international system that is biased towards the great powers. This double pressure either makes or break a state, and it is this tension that is the focus of the special issue. How does a country in the global south deal with external and internal forces? What kinds of negotiations take place that allow a state to balance international and domestic pressures? More importantly, what strategies are used that reflect a state’s own paradigms, worldviews, and realities?

To argue in favor of differences, however, is not unproblematic. For one, how different is “different”? While on one hand it may be accurate to say that the global south is easily distinguishable from the more affluent countries in the north, it is not too far a stretch to also posit that so-called non-Western approaches have similarities with or overlap with “Western” International Relations concepts. If no approach can thus be considered as purely “Western,” consequently then, no approach can likewise be seen as purely “non-Western.” In addition, differences imply binary logics and stress the arbitrary lines between north and south, West and non-West. Doing so therefore reproduces modes of inclusion and exclusion.

As an exemplar to these nuances, the special issue offered perspectives from the Philippines. The country’s colonial past and struggles towards independence make it a prime example for how a member of the global south participates in contemporary international affairs despite certain constraints. The objectives of the special issue are to interrogate the theoretical and empirical ways of studying the global south, to bring together the works of young scholars and tease out the nuances of the Philippines’ role in the international and domestic levels of analysis, and to contribute to the conversation about the role of the global south in international relations.

This concluding article offers a bird’s-eye view of the nuances of the differences of the global south and the problems associated with it. I argue that while the differences may indeed be unique, not seeing beyond those is problematic. In line with this, I first acknowledge the differences the global south represents. I look at how the IR concepts of state, rational choice, and the international system are seen as inapplicable to the workings of the global south, and how this “misfit” is detected not only in the dynamics of Philippine foreign policy, but also in its relationships with various regional powers like the United States and China. I then turn to the problems associated with seeing only the differences of the global south. I highlight the concepts of mimicry and hybridity before examining the cases of the Philippines’ development strategies, labor conditions, human security for migrant workers, and disability-related issues. In all these, caution, mindfulness, and the need for dialogue are therefore called for.

Differently different

Pinar Bilgin points out how members of the global south are “differently different” (Bilgin 2012 ). Countries herein share the idea that certain concepts in traditional IR do not seem to “fit” with their historical and future trajectories (Neuman 1998 ). At the same time, members of the global south are “differently different” because their experiences, not least with the various regional powers and with each other, vary. The context and rationale of Philippine foreign policy certainly differs from, say, the foreign policy of Singapore. Moreover, the Philippines’ relations with the United States, China, and Japan may indeed showcase asymmetry, but the levels or variance of asymmetry are still not quite the same. Being “differently different” thus echoes Homi Bhabha’s “almost the same but not quite” adage (Bhabha 1994 ).

Three International Relations concepts qualify as a “misfit.” The first has to do with the state. IR’s Westphalian foundations celebrate the state as the basic unit of analysis and that, metaphorically, it is as monolithic as a billiard ball. With statehood comes sovereignty, that inviolable pillar of the modern international system. A state in the global south, however, may meet the basic tenets of statehood (territory, people, government, sovereignty), but its sovereignty is challenged by instances of intervention from the outside. This is because the statehood of a country in the global south still falls short of being fully consolidated. Mohammed Ayoob defines a prototypical “Third World” state as displaying the following characteristics: lack of internal cohesion, lack of definitive and legitimate state boundaries, vulnerability to internal and inter-state conflicts, uneven development, marginalization in international forums, and intervention by wealthier states, international organizations, or transnational and multinational corporations (Ayoob 1995 ). Whereas states in the global north are more outward looking in terms of the sources of security threats, for instance, those in the global south have a more inward orientation: insecurity for most of these states originate from within their borders instead of from without.

A second International Relations concept that does not seem to “fit” has to do with the value placed on rational choice. In a world of insecurity, it is only rational for states, whether they are strong or weak, to form alliances in order to minimize uncertainty. As with the concept of statehood, this too is not without problems. In the first place, what is considered rational may vary from culture to culture (Neuman 1998 ). For many in the global south, rationality may lie in embracing nationalism for purposes of consolidating their identity and hence, their statehood. Also, while alliances do work, arrangements like these between and among members of the global south are few and far between (Neuman 1998 ). The Philippines is a case in point: in the context of rising tensions in the South China Sea, it beefs up its alliance with the United States more so than its partnerships with the other claimants.

Third, the international system may undeniably be anarchic and the occurrence of interstate wars may but be typical. The case of the global south, however, depicts the more regular, even more expected, occurrence of intrastate wars. In this sense, it is not anarchy that constrains the external behavior of most states in the global south, but hierarchy (Escude 1998 ). The international system thus represents a paradox for countries in the global south, for while they may be predisposed towards the maintenance of the international order, their security and economic dependence on the north readily guarantees the perpetuation of a structure that “at the same time and at a different level they consider inequitable (Ayoob 1995 ).

The “misfit” of these concepts with the realities in the global south therefore underscores the power of the dominant paradigm in International Relations. The logic of power politics is representative only of a handful of (great) powers, and its pervasiveness results in the parochialism and provincialism of International Relations. This Americo-centric and Eurocentric treatment of global affairs is detrimental not only to International Relations (the field of study), but also to international relations (the area of study) (Barkawi and Laffey 2006 ; Hobson 2012 ). It is precisely this that leads scholars to advocate worldviews that originate in the “non-Western” world. For instance, in acknowledging the colonial past, the struggles of the global south may be understood as a struggle for political, economic, and cultural emancipation (Puchala 1998 ). Meanwhile, focusing on culture, hybridity, and everyday life may account for alternative streams of knowledge (Tickner 2003 ). “Non-Western” traditions likewise have significant contributions in better explaining and understanding international relations (Acharya and Buzan 2009 ). To be fair, it must be acknowledged that some “Western” IR thinking carry perspectives of the “non-Western” world, such as dependency theory, world systems theory, postcolonialism, critical theories, postmodernism, poststructuralism, and constructivism.

Although members of the global south have similar experiences in regard to how different they are from the more developed countries in the north, they are nonetheless “differently different.” The articles in this issue showcase the variance of the Philippines’ asymmetric relations with extra-regional powers. The Philippine experience is noteworthy, not least because of its role in the ongoing disputes in the South China Sea. How then does the Philippines negotiate with the great powers in the region? What role does the US–Philippine alliance play in the face of China’s assertive moves? How do the disputes affect China-Philippine relations? Certainly, the Philippines’ ability to manage its relations with the great powers is a testament to the challenges that a country in the global south faces.

As a jump-off point, this special issue focused first on the Philippines’ relations with the bigger powers. US–Philippine relations demonstrate continued engagement as seen in the International Peace and Security Plan for the Philippines’ credible external defense capability, the security sector reform, and further cooperation with other partners, including Australia, Japan, and South Korea. The article on China–Philippine relations, meanwhile, offered an analysis of the South China Sea dispute via asymmetric dilemmas involving variances in military forces, economic capacity, territorial size, and population. The rising tensions in the South China Sea can then be explained due to the failed management of asymmetric relationships. Coloring this is the factor of the US rebalance in Asia, which shifts the asymmetric bilateral dilemma of China–Philippine relations to a triangular entanglement between the US, China, and the Philippines.

In sum, the Philippines displays how a country in the global south maneuvers its way in the international system. Indeed, there are significant differences in the way it interacts with various actors. In the same way, some of the realities that the Philippines faces are contrary to or are not totally aligned with the more stringent concepts of International Relations. The concept of the state and the deployment of rational choice in the context of the international system all blend in and become more fluid when seen from the perspective of the Philippines. Sovereignty, which is an anchor of statehood, might not have been overstepped, but what became rational for a small state like the Philippines was not so much to exercise force to defend its sovereign integrity, but to learn how to hedge in an international system where great powers dominate. Seen in this light, a global south perspective is indeed different. However, focusing solely on what makes the Philippines different runs the risk of replicating the very modes of exclusion it tries to veer away from.

The problem of difference

Seeing differences matters. The global south and the global north oftentimes do exhibit stark contrasts. In the same way, International Relations concepts translate into something else when applied to the “non-Western” world (Inayatullah and Blaney 2004 ; Tickner and Waever 2009 ). Within the global south, however, there is—surprisingly—not enough difference (Tickner and Blaney 2012 ). There is, at best, limited difference. Several factors explain this, such as that there are some disciplinary parameters that simply work against diversity, and that International Relations, whether “western” or “non-Western,” remains state-centric (Tickner and Blaney 2012 ). But the crux of the problem of difference hinges on the concepts of mimicry and hybridity.

The global south is said to mimic its counterparts in the north. By emphasizing difference, the implicit message is the need to bridge that gap via imitation: if only the global south were more like the north, then life would be better. Ayoob subscribes to the same logic: if only the “Third World” would consolidate its statehood like the “First World,” then it could participate better and more fully in the international system, and it would no longer be in a security predicament (1995). The colonial discourse of mimicry therefore “emerges as the representation of a difference that is itself a process of disavowal” (Bhabha 1994 , 86).

A second problem associated with highlighting difference is the notion of hybridity, which is the representation of an incomplete or contested global project: “Hybrid space is always contested—a push and pull between uniformity and difference. In this respect, hybridity might be celebrated in that it preserves diversity in the face of homogenizing practices (Tickner and Blaney 2012 , 7). Hybridity enables the blending of categories. “West” and “non-West” are no longer distinct. Instead, they are suffused with ideas from both sides (Bilgin 2008 ).

Hybridity is reflected in three areas that the Philippines is facing: labor conditions, human security for migrant workers, and disability issues. Some of the questions that the articles posed were as follows. Given that one of the Philippines’ most significant contributions to the global economy is its overseas labor, what are the conditions and migration patterns of overseas Filipino workers? In a similar vein, how does the Philippine state guarantee human security for Filipino migrants? An inclusive development strategy must likewise take into account persons with disabilities. In 2008, the Philippines ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. What have been accomplished so far, and what more needs to be done?

The article on labor conditions examined the plight of Filipino nurses in crisis zones like Libya. The authors find that while the migrants exercised risk calculation and reduction, they nonetheless tended to commit risk denial and embrace a false sense of empowerment and exceptionality. This provides a better justification for the Philippine government to take steps in implementing policies regarding the security of its migrant workers. The article on human security advocated institutionalizing human security policies and assumptions, but doing so carried risks. Ultimately, the solution would lay in the building of a national consensus on migration where stakeholders could participate in the debate. Finally, the article on disability issues evaluated whether the Philippines’ electoral processes are disability inclusive. Using the disability convention policy framework, the author found that the Philippines needs to improve in both the institutional and social levels. In closing, while the differences of the global south matter, focusing only on what makes it distinct enables the practice of mimicry and underestimates the power of hybridity. The Philippine experience in the areas of labor, human security, and disability issues present the blending of arbitrary divisions.

The countries of the global south can be characterized as being caught between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they are distinct from their counterparts in the global north. On the other hand, highlighting the difference undermines postcolonial realities. The Philippines captures these pressures succinctly. This begs several questions, however. Would the same be experienced by another member of the global south, for instance, countries like Ghana or Yemen or Ecuador? In what forms would “difference” take across these countries? Would there be significant differences among these similar countries? Asking these questions allows the possibility of dialogue not just between the global south and the global north, but more importantly, among the members of the global south themselves. International relations can then be more inclusive and more representative of what we call the “international.”

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Global South and Global North: What Are They & What’s the Conflict?

By Marlena Angermann Categories: Environment & Nature August 2, 2022, 8:51 AM

The terms ‘Global South’ and ‘Global North’ can be convoluted and misleading. While they aren’t based purely on geography, the definitions vary across the context and time period.

The divide between the so-called Global North and Global South is based on the Brandt Line , a physical line dividing the world into “north” and “south”. Unlike the equator, it is not based on latitude, but rather on economic status of the countries it divides. This line was proposed in the 1980s in order to demonstrate how the divide between rich and poor countries sat quite reliably between the north and south of the Earth. The only exceptions were Australia and New Zealand. Essentially, the terms served to replace the more dated concept of ‘first world’ and ‘third world’ nations — which could be said to imply a value judgment. The term ‘Global South’ is often used interchangeably with ‘underdeveloped’ or ‘developing’ countries. 

The concept of a Global South and Global North has changed considerably in the last decades, as the world’s economies and conditions have developed and changed. The geographical line is not so simple anymore. It’s also important to note that the terms ‘Global South’ and ‘Global North’ can be defined in different ways . For these reasons, the terms have been criticized. By some definitions, for instance, Malaysia, Argentina and Botswana no longer fit into the ‘Global South’ label. Official organizations therefore prefer to classify states using more measurable, easily defined terms. The World Bank, for example, classifies countries by the gross national income: a country can be low, medium or high income. National development of a state can also be measured by GDP or Human Development Index. 

What Are the Global South and Global North? 3 Definitions

There are currently three general definitions used to measure the Global North and South.

• The first is based on economic development of states. More recently, this definition changed to reflect which nations are negatively impacted by modern capitalist globalization.
• The second definition refers to the Global South as a body of nations with the shared experience of domination and exploitation under global capitalism.
• The third definition breaks down the geography of the Global North and South, and argues that there also is great wealth inequality within the borders of nations themselves. Antonio Gramsci, a famous Italian Marxist, argues, for example, that northern Italian capitalists have colonized the south of the same country. This definition has contributed to the concern that these terms are dated.

As inequality grows, there are countries which are difficult to pinpoint as belonging to the Global North or South under any of these definitions. India, for example, has seen economic growth leading to the rise of the middle class and a rich elite. However, the nation still has some of the highest rates of slums and extreme poverty in the world. 

Global South versus Global North: What’s the Conflict?

The Global North and South are most often defined based on a variety of measurements including their resources, education, health, living conditions, economy, industry, trade, markets, government, international relations and conflicts. The inequalities between the Global North and South have manifested at the hands of the Global North.

Put simply, the inequality experienced disproportionately in the Global South is rooted in the colonialism and imperialism historically inflicted by the Global North . The Global South has been robbed of its natural resources and labor rights for centuries, creating an unequal playing field from the start. Today, there continues to be an unequal exchange between rich and poor countries, with inequality worsening due to unfair trade. Research shows that rich countries continue to import materials, energy, land and labor from poor nations at exploitative prices, boosting their own economies only. In fact, in 2018 alone, unequal exchange accounted for 2.2 trillion Dollars. This is fifteen times more than the amount required to end extreme poverty. Between 1960 and 2018, the Global North drained 62 trillion Dollars from the Global South, with researchers concluding that “rich countries continue to rely on imperial forms of appropriation to sustain their high levels of income and consumption.”

Not only does this unequal trade contribute to the prevention of development in the Global South, but it is unsustainable . The rates of consumption in the Global North are greatly contributing to climate change, while the countries of the Global South have the smaller carbon footprint . According to the Global Climate Risk Index 2020 by the Germanwatch institute, the five countries or states most affected by climate change in the 21st century are all part of the Global South: Puerto Rico, Haiti, Pakistan, Myanmar and the Philippines.

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Global South-Global North Differences

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Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals ((ENUNSDG))

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Definitions

The Global South – a term that refers to developing countries located mostly in the southern hemisphere, with generally low income levels and facing different structural problems.

The Global North – a term that refers to developed countries concentrated in the northern hemisphere, characterized by high levels of income, technological advancement, well-developed infrastructure, and macroeconomic and political stability.

Brandt line – an imaginary line encircling the world at a latitude of approximately 30° North, drawn up by Willy Brandt in 1980s to show the persistent socio-economic differences between developed countries above the line (the Global North) and developing countries below the line (the Global South).

Convergence hypothesis – hypothesis that poorer economies’ incomes per capita grow at faster rates than richer economies until, given sufficient time, all countries will eventually reach the same level of income per capita.

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This research was supported by the National Science Center, Poland, under Grant No 2016/21/B/HS4/03025.

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An analysis of the global north south divide

Runner up for the Cambridge Society for Economic Pluralism essay competition, written by upper sixth-former Jack Donnelly.

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The Global North is rich largely due to exploitation and underdevelopment of the Global South, which still goes on to this day, and therefore owes reparations to rectify this rift. Discuss.

Murmurs of discontent spread throughout the former colonies. In July 2020 this went beyond mere whispers as the Democratic Republic of the Congo demanded compensation for the pain inflicted by decades spent under colonial rule. Just a month later, Burundi laid the same demands at the feet of Belgium and Germany – to the tune of $43 billion. There’s no doubt that a massive proportion of Sub-Saharan Africa’s – and indeed the Global South’s – modern troubles come courtesy of their exploitation under the Global North; the question emerges, do the modern nations owe reparations for crimes committed centuries ago?

The Global North is an oft-cited idea which, in reality, lacks clear boundaries or uniting principles. For one, the conceptual Global North ignores the geographical parameters implied by the name – it is not simply a conglomerate of nations existing above the Equator or, indeed, some agreed latitude. Therefore, before discussing the Global North-South divide we must establish what the Global North actually describes. The Brandt Report of 1980 gave economists and politicians an idea of the immense gulf in development between the two hemispheres; more importantly, it gave us the ‘Brandt Line’ which depicts the divide based on GDP per capita as a factor. Notably, it straddles the Earth at 30 o N but drops to include New Zealand and Australia as part of the Global North. Brandt himself was optimistic for the new century and that coordination between the hemispheres could ‘build a world in which sharing, justice, freedom and peace might prevail’. 

In another sense, the geopolitical North-South divide was highlighted in Alfred Sauvy’s Trois Mondes, une planète where he coined the terms First, Second, and Third World. The phrases were originally instituted for the USA and the USSR and their respective allies, along with the unaligned Third World – a term now synonymous with poverty and underdevelopment, rather than a particular political alignment. Today we like to characterise the divide through a number of developmental factors: income inequality, wealth, democracy indices, along with political and economic freedom.

Regardless of how you categorise the divide – it is most certainly there. Examining its extent, the North earns four-fifths of the world’s income while constituting less than a quarter of its population; additionally, at least up until the early 2000s, over 90% of global manufacturing took place in the North. Interpreting the level to which exploitation has brought about the current situation could allow a conclusion to be reached on whether reparations are truly owed. 

The most obvious example of historical Northern exploitation of the South is colonialism – it’s simply inescapable. Initially, it came commercially, through companies such as the British and Dutch East India Companies [1] which grew to dominate the economies of their respective subjugated nations. At its height, the East India Company accounted for over 50% of global

trade and acted with the sovereignty and jurisdiction of a self-governing nation. The global mechanism of colonialism was analogous to that of a catapult. The colonial powers of Western Europe played a major role in the deindustrialisation of non-Western societies; British intervention in the Indian subcontinent reduced its share of global GDP from almost a quarter to just a couple of measly percentage points as shown in Figure 2. The metaphor completes itself in the way colonialism catapulted Western powers to global superiority through the exploitation of their colonial subjects.  

Nothing is a more egregious act of exploitation than the Atlantic Slave Trade existing between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Briefly ignoring the horrific brutality and the dehumanising nature of the slave trade, we can identify it as the catalyst for so many demographical and economic issues facing Africa today. Some 12 million Africans were captured and shipped out – primarily to America – by the Europeans, destroying their social fabric and depleting the workforce immensely. The poorest parts of modern Africa share a direct correlation with the areas where the most slaves were taken. The scars of colonialism are visible to this day; African nations were created from thin air, ignoring cultural or geographical divides and instead opting for arbitrary borders which have incited enormous amounts of conflict – both national and international – since. 

Even beyond exploitation in its most explicit forms, the colonial powers of Western Europe capitalised on their supremacy by taking further advantage of unfair trade. Through ‘gunboat diplomacy’ [2] , they forced many countries which had escaped colonisation to sign unequal treaties, leaving the nations bereft of tariff autonomy. To understand the impact of this, we must examine the strength of protectionist policies in young economies. Alexander Hamilton argued in his 1791 Report on the Subject of Manufactures that the US needed to defend

‘industries in their infancy’ from cheaper imports in the more competitive and developed international market. By stripping young economies of ‘infant industry protection’, the powers of the Global North deprived many Latin American and Asian countries of a fair chance at development. Many of these treaties lasted for decades – even well into the twentieth century in some cases. The affected Southern countries experienced negative per capita income growth during the late Industrial Revolution period; an inability to nurture and promote their youthful industries contributed immensely. 

While the level of ‘exploitation’ today does not even hold a candle to its heights in colonial times, forms of neo-colonialism exist between powerful modern countries and the ‘Third World’. China is exercising its financial might – through FDI [3] – across the entire continent of Africa, moulding it into essentially a ‘China’s China’; in this case, however, the development is not necessarily one-sided. The truth is that China is richly compensating African nations as they surge forwards with rapid urbanisation in the ‘fourth industrial revolution’ [4] . Daan Roggeveen, the founder of an Architecture firm and an author of books on Chinese and African

Urbanisation, said ‘right now you could say that any big project in African cities that is higher than three floors or roads that are longer than three kilometres are most likely being built and engineered by the Chinese. It is ubiquitous’. Africa is sitting on a massive stockpile of natural resources and China has been quick to take advantage of the power vacuum in the wake of departing colonial powers. China itself is still considered a part of the Global South, but in essence its actions in Africa are reminiscent of historical Northern intervention. Indeed, there have been cries of exploitation and Chinese imperialism, with the former governor of Nigeria’s central bank criticising their removal of natural resources without any provision of economic enrichment in the form of skills and jobs. Regardless, Africa benefits in some sense from the massive amounts of FDI – something one could consider a form of economic reparation. 

Conversely, a significant portion of the North’s success can be attributed to their intrinsic development. Throughout history, a correlation can be identified between the quality of institutions, the strength of government and more advanced economic development. These are elements of a country which can be built up naturally over time; alternatively, they can be instigated by colonisers or conquering foreign powers. School enrolment and greater provision of public goods, for example, contribute a powerful multiplier effect to development. It could be argued that the Global South has not arrived in its disadvantaged position as a result of exploitation, but instead due to unfortunate geography, climate and numerous other factors. 

The Global South has, beyond this, suffered from factors exogenous to the influence of the North. Geography is key to this argument – Africa and South America have been disadvantaged greatly due to their narrow orientation; Eurasia benefits from wide, vast plains of arable land perfect for cultivation and the domestication livestock. A lack of genetic immunity in the ‘New World’ led to the decimation of native populations throughout the continent; immunity that

European settlers had from centuries of close integration with livestock – something native Americans never had. Ultimately, the resulting underdevelopment cannot be pinned on European settlers; they could never have foreseen the devastation they would reap on the relatively immunocompromised natives. The blame here falls upon the poor geographical starting points of Southern societies.

Furthermore, Modernisation Theory attempts to explain the underdevelopment of the Global South as a result of their own policies and socio-economic structures rather than Northern intervention. Feudalism, tribalism and relatively primitive economic structures have led their societies to a point where they lack regulation, democracy and have failed to modernise and develop themselves. The theory considers Third World society largely responsible for its own poverty. The archetypal societal approach tends to grant too much power to individuals; corruption in a country’s elite leadership can obviously be enormously detrimental to development – but it is all too prevalent. 

The Global South now has its own mechanisms in place which, certainly in part, negate the need to have reparations paid by the North. One of the most notable institutions representing the spirit of the developing Global South is the BRICS [5] , a multilateral group of major emerging Southern economies. Between them, they constitute 41% of the global population and approximately 23% of world GDP. The BRICS have two key components to their financial architecture which are dedicated to the development of the Global South, the New Development Bank (NDB) and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA). The bank, in particular, aims to lend up to $34 billion annually with a focus on massive infrastructure development. When outlining the plan for the organisations, the BRICS found themselves keen to distance Southern investment from the North’s sphere of influence; since they are willing to offer competitive rates to their Southern associates, perhaps they are best left to collaborate without the need for Northern intervention or reparations.

Moreover, we are obligated to question the feasibility of reparations being paid by the North. Multilateral payments of any kind are notoriously difficult to agree upon, as could be witnessed with the days of debate over collective debt [6] assumption in the EU in response to the Coronavirus Pandemic. Now consider the complexity of any agreement that would require payment by the collective ‘North’ to the collective ‘South’ on the basis of centuries of

exploitation and mistreatment. Even if it were decided that the current Global North needed to be held responsible for the actions of past generations, the practicality of it dispensing payments or other forms of compensation is contentious at best. Perhaps the more effective method of extending the olive branch would be through bilateral – rather than multilateral – action and intervention; individual Northern powers could be responsible for making reparations with the countries specifically impacted by their ventures. 

Ultimately, the statement is true: ‘The Global North is rich largely due to exploitation and underdevelopment of the Global South’ – to a certain extent. While the North has benefited significantly at the detriment of Southern countries, it is unfair to say that their wealth comes largely from exploitation. A significant portion of Northern success came from the strength of their innate development – strong institutions and a focus on societal growth and evolution have built them into successful nations. Regarding reparations, it is apparent that payment from a United North to a United South would be impossibly complicated to arrange; instead, individual acts of bilateral aids between wealthy Northern nations and poorer Southern nations targeting rapid economic and social development could be a far more constructive option.  

Bibliography

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Banerjee, A. V., & Duflo, E. (2013). Under the Thumb of History? Political institutions and the Scope for Action. Annual Review of Economics .

Burundi Joins Congo in Demanding Reparations from Belgium . (2020, August 14). Retrieved from Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-14/burundi-demands-43billion-as-reparations-from-colonial-rulers

Chang, H.-J. (2014). Economics: The User’s Guide. London: The Penguin Group.

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Europe’s €750bn rescue package sets a welcome precedent . (2020, July 25). Retrieved from The Economist: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/07/25/europes-eu750bn-rescuepackage-sets-a-welcome-precedent

Iyer, L. (2007, November 6). Direct versus Indirect Colonial Rule in India: Long-Term Consequences. Harvard Business School Working Paper , 5-51.

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Rappaport, J., & Sachs, J. D. (2003). The United States as a Coastal Nation. Jounral of Economic Growth , 5-46.

Sachs, J. (2001). The Geography of Poverty and Wealth. Scientific American , 284.

Sauvy, A. (1952). Trois Mondes, Une Planéte. L’Observateur , 14.

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Woolcock, M., Szreter, S., & Rao, V. (2009). How and Why Does History Matter for Development Policy? Brooks World Poverty Institute .

[1] The British East India Company operated in the Indian subcontinent while the Dutch East India Company was in the Dutch East Indies, modern-day Indonesia. 

[2] Pursuit of foreign policy objectives with the aid of conspicuous displays of naval power 

[3] Foreign Direct Investment – Investment in the form of a controlling ownership in a business in one country by an entity based in another country. 

[4] ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution’ is the ongoing automation of traditional manufacturing and industrial practices, using modern smart technology.

[5] Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS)

[6] The EU agreed in July 2020 to an $869bn recovery package with debt shared between each member state. Despite close links between the EU states it took several days of debate to reach an agreement.

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Contemporary Visual Culture in North Africa and the Middle East

• Publications

The Global South

Conflicting narratives and the invention of geographies.

'Geography is we make our own map from the river to the sea.'

–  Jehan Bseiso

This essay is a reflection on the term 'Global South', and, at the same time, a discussion of the challenges we face while thinking about the cultural and political practices inscribed in the geography to which the term refers. Its central argument is that in order to have a Global South as a space from where one discusses the world we now live (and, of course, the objects/subjects/knowledge immersed in this world), holding an epistemic position is of fundamental importance. Such a position, as we shall see, requires that we raise certain questions and carefully consider specific approaches, which might help us achieve a more complex idea of what the Global South is.

To discuss such an issue, we should take for granted that what we understand –  and experience –  as 'the world' is, after all, a web of intermingled subjectivities within which powers and knowledge, from a Foucaultian perspective, [1]  are part of one system. From this point of view, the Global South as a concept must also be thought beyond physical geographical locations. For Michel de Certeau, [2]  although the border seems to be nothing but a line division, it has no end. More than a physical barrier, it is a space of encountering, where proximities and distances are to be found and counterpointed rather than erased.

This is the paradox of the border, as De Certeau says, a place where great divides and strong links are altogether part of a whole. This text starts from the premise that to think of a Global South without facing such a paradox might lead us to sustain what the geographies of power have always done: inventing the space of the other as reminiscence; an existence that befalls the interests of those who are in power.

Moreover, the existence of a Global South brings back issues related to the production of a Eurocentric imaginary and the issue of subalternities. [3] These problems are of great importance if we are to conceive this naming, so to speak, as an opposition to the existence of a 'North'. If we take this opposition as a non-criticized fact, the 'South' would be nothing but reminiscences coming out of a once opaque invented space.

These topics have been very much the concern of the so-called postcolonial thinkers, and with them we already know this view is a narrow-minded perspective from which to think. [4]  But one cannot neglect the fact that there can only be a Global South if a 'North' is assumed to exist. Therefore, part of the argument of this essay is that it would certainly be naïve to disregard the process of building this binary opposition as fundamental to the consideration of the term. Our effort is then to understand the Global South as an issue that is both discursive and pragmatic.

This essay suggests one cannot face the apparition of this 'entity', as if it were out of the context of the postcolonial societies we now know. This is to say that the Global South is a term that portrays various senses, not necessarily contradictory but certainly paradoxical. For instance, it is impregnated within the epistemic project that has pervaded centuries –  of mapping the world based on dichotomies, and it is, at the same time, marked by the process of intermingling subjectivities, which is inscribed in a complex system of power relations.

From this point of view, the space such a label evokes was opaque, if at all, only with respect to a certain thought built on the basis of the 'North/South' division. As some in postcolonial studies have been able to clarify, dominant epistemic conditions have prevailed in the production of knowledge about the world as a bipartite system. However, when it comes to the struggle for existing, and to the gestures and practices of everyday life, it is the very point of never being opaque that now makes us think of the south as a space of interest.

This discussion of the 'Global South' as a discursive construction is triggered by a reflection that stems from long-term research on narratives of conflict, within which disputes involving Palestine and Africa have been the central focus. By thinking of Brazil and England as agents involved in the representations of these conflicts, the research proposes a map that crosses space and time. Firstly because it deals with locations geographically situated in the northern/southern (and eastern/western) hemispheres; secondly because the conflicts it deals with are situated in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through comparative analysis in both Brazilian and British media and films, the research examines the spatiality inscribed in the narratives so as to think about representation, power and identities. [5]

Matar and Harb, by discussing conflict and narration, call attention to the fact that 'nowhere is the competition over the imagination, construction and narration of conflict…more compelling' than in the Middle East, where, above all, 'conflicts over space, identity, discourse, image and narrative' are disputed. [6]  This essay takes into consideration these disputed issues, and by seeing narrative as constitutive of a political/esthetical process of producing and reframing identities, it proposes to decentralize the conflict within the Middle East.

It is suggested to extend the idea of conflict to the perspective of a world that has long been mapped from a constructed 'North/South' division: a discursive space where dominant powers are always in charge of promoting simplifications and reductionisms. From this point of view, this reflection proposes to think about what is within and what exceeds those limits. 'North/South', in this case, are enlarged categories that, in spite of representing specific geographical locations, go beyond the limits of the borders they create. This study is expected to provide a broader look on issues within which the Global South is inscribed.

The Global South is part of a dynamic and complex cultural and political spatiality weaved within significant intercultural relations and signifying practices. By following this route, this essay is intended to help unveil discursive geopolitics that inscribes complexities within the geophysics of which the Global South is constituted. This essay suggests that the Global South –  as a location/space from where practices are seen, interpreted and recognized –  also demands a look from outside the borders within which it has been discursively inscribed.

Therefore, in order to minimally escape from the risk of falling in the old binary perspective, by reframing and sustaining the invented 'North/South' opposition, one must always be suspicious and critical towards any kind of thought, or gesture, that disregards the complexities and paradoxes involved in this process of 'reinventing' the world. It is in the same act of suspecting and criticizing that one ought to realize the need to find ways to consider the existence of a space –  named as the Global South –  that is not only far from being opaque, but also, and most of all, as one that has always existed in its differences.

Within the Structures of Modern/Colonial Discursive Projects

The most general premise that follows this essay is that narratives invent geographies. The importance of such an approach is that it leads us, firstly, to the idea of the 'North/South', and we can also think of it in terms of 'West/East', as part of discursive projects. Besides being materialities –  geographical locations inscribed in world maps, sustained by nationalisms and state regulations –  they are fabricated categories, names that portray various senses and interests, along with imaginaries and power relations. In this aspect, they support the discursive project that invents narratives sustained by its constructed opposition, conveying meanings, in this specific case, closely attached to modern and colonial imaginaries.

Delving into imaginaries and power relations within which this discourse is inscribed demands a look back in time. De Certeau outlines a very precise image by identifying the turn of modernity. For this author, in order to understand the shift noticed in the way the world is represented, it is fundamental to look at the art of cartography at the turn of the fifteenth century. De Certeau is concerned about discussing narrative structures and differences in reports, using space and place as narrative figures. What he also does, by identifying the changes in map representations, is to help make us aware of the emergence of a certain imaginary that, from then on, became part of the way modern man would see himself and the world.

From maps that used to indicate pathways by showing narrative figures –  all kinds of human characters, animals, ships –  denoting the complex spatiality in which the world has always been immersed, to those in which the setting (and drawing) of fixed lines and borders became constitutive, a shift of imaginaries is then noticed. In other words, one goes from a perspective in which man is inscribed in the space to which he belongs, to another one –  which opens modernity, in De Certeau's words –  that signifies/represents man in relation to places.

A shift from space to place, therefore, is what guides this man's way of conceiving and interpreting the world of which he was to become part. For De Certeau, this explains how everyday practices –  built and experimented within the realm of a complex spatiality –  seem to disappear from reports, once what happens is the fading of itinerary descriptions. These practices are obviously not absent from everyday lives, remarks De Certeau, but what is there to be seen, in the reports, is a 'system of geographical locations,' [7]  a process of naming and defining places within their own borders.

What interests us, in this aspect, is to notice how this can be added to what Mignolo calls a 'modern/colonial world system', a way of seeing/conceiving the world, an imaginary that is also produced in the same period to which De Certeau refers. For Mignolo, the emergence of the Atlantic circuit (sixteenth century) –  which includes the increment of the 'discoveries' led by Portugal and Spain, and of course along with other important changes that were taking place at the time –  made coloniality constitutive of modernity. [8]

Discourses centred on modernity, and western civilization, argues Mignolo, have long contributed to separating it from colonialism by silencing the more complex planetary dimension of human history. [9]  In other words, the hegemonic discourse on modernity, which is part of a complex articulation of powers –  structured, for instance, around the idea of civilization versus barbarianism –  has covered the problem of colonialism, eliciting what Mignolo identifies as subalternization of knowledge [10] . From this point of view, the imaginary of which the modern/colonial world system consists, acquires a relevant component, though still not structured: the idea that knowledge lies at some point where power is. In other words, wherever there is power, you find knowledge: a sense that became true within the basic structure of the discourse that invented the opposition 'North'/'South'. The act of naming things, never isolated from the imaginaries and the historical processes within which these names are constitutive, elicits the pair power/knowledge.

Foucault was mostly concerned about understanding the interrelations produced within this pair, when referring to the very nature of modern thought. From the perspective of knowledge production, according to Foucault, power is what connects names to things. The imaginary built within the so-called 'modern/colonial world system' anchors itself, around two centuries after the period Mignolo and De Certeau are speaking of, to what is said to be the time modern thought is being consolidated. Foucault identifies the formation of this thought by discussing the way power is structured. It is then the concept of disciplinary power –  one that works within the formation and the epistemic structures of the disciplines –  that becomes relevant when considering modern thought functioning as a legitimized way of being in and thinking about the world. Also referred to as 'Western thought' (a fact that denotes how closely the idea of modernity is to the dominant geographies of the western world), so-called 'modern thought' is impregnated with the effort of ordering things from the perspective of hegemonic forces situated in the North.

This is what is meant by the idea of a Eurocentric perspective within the formation of a legitimized knowledge in and upon the world. The eighteenth century is then seen, from a Foucaultian perspective, as the time within which this episteme is consolidated. With the support of Social Sciences, on what concerns the attempt of adjusting life to production apparatuses (schools, law, hospitals, and so on), and the legitimisation of concepts of a modern History and Geography, just to mention a few of these disciplines within which this type of power is exercised, an epistemology of the world, built within the European borders, produces what is supposed to be universally true. [11]

Thus, the colonial imaginary becomes modern, which is what Mignolo means by saying that one is the structural counterpart of the other. The former finds sustenance in the latter, whereas this one legitimizes the other. The process of producing knowledge, stratified as Foucault describes, is the missing part man needed in order to carry on with the most utopian aspect of the modernity project: to organize the world. Supported by disciplines, this effort does not only countersign the colonial imaginary, built and materialized in the colonial ventures (fourteenth/fifteenth centuries), but also, and mainly, founds a way of mapping the world.

The recognition of subalternization is very significant, once we consider that what was actually being produced, within the process described by Mignolo, was an imaginary ruled by the idea of a legitimized subalternity. In this case, still in line with Mignolo's argument, I am speaking of the suppression of senses and the geo-historical located body, considering that no knowledge subalternization occurs without subalternizing the way one sees/locates oneself in the world. [12]  To better understand the process of legitimizing subalternities and its potential aftermaths, it is necessary to think of geographical locations. Giving names and drawing up borders –  which, in this process, is what the complex spatial dimension is reduced to –  are often and easily attached to the strings of power. In this case, one of these names – 'North' –  holds control of the whole process described by Mignolo (and complexified by De Certeau), whereas the other – 'South' –  is the one being subalternized.

Therefore, if we understand that conceiving the world in terms of places means losing itinerary references from the perspective of dominant discourses, we also realize how strong the other discourse being produced on the other side of the same coin becomes. This submissive discourse, which sustains the power of those who give names and make the world 'readable', is also rooted in the modern/colonial world system, and, most importantly, it founds an imaginary of submission, which supports modes of being in –  and of referring to –  the 'South'.

We are speaking of an imaginary that maps out and, therefore, narrates the world from the perspective of the maintained power. This is meant to emphasize, first of all, that there is a 'way of being South' still sustained by the knowledge and the imaginary built in favour of a 'way of being North'. One also works as the counterpart of the other in the sense that maintaining the idea of South implies sustaining the idea of 'North', and vice-versa. In this specific case, this process corroborates the colonial/modern world system and the whole subalternization issue of which we have been speaking; a process that results in the production of narratives that often bear the same mapping and geographical division that reiterate the power about which we are concerned.

Tracking this process is a way of accessing locations and forms of inscribing the type of power from which the modern/colonial world system imaginary comes to existence. Nonetheless, and mostly important for our reflection, it is also a form of pointing out how much there is of this structure in the discursive project that invented the opposition 'North' and 'South'. Narrative and space, in this case, are two important concepts and analytical categories to which we should refer.

Narratives Inventing Geographies

Narratives elicit spatialities, whereas the latter evokes the former. In the case of narratives, it all depends on strategies, interests and interpretations rather than on giving names and/or determining physical geographies. According to Paul Ricoeur, [13]  to narrate is to be in the world. For this author, narrative is the articulation of a temporal existence, a site from where human time becomes true once it is articulated in a narrative mode. Experience and time, above all, are inscribed in the space narratives evoke.

Moreover, a look through narratives means an effort of accomplishing the task of reading worlds, as narrative is the result of the interrelations that occur within three domains: one of the author, the other of the work itself and the third of the reader (Ricoeur). It is from this perspective that narratives are thought as sites where subjectivities and differences are emplotted, being, in this aspect, the result of social-cultural relations. It is thus a site for the production of meanings and knowledge, and, most of all, a site from where experience is produced.

Bhabha refers to the power of narrative as a space within which meanings and differences are noticed. For this author, 'the very nature of narrative' is to raise issues on 'the otherness, power relations and contradictions/paradoxes' from a cultural/political perspective. [14]  In this vein, if we understand space as an accumulation of disjunctive times, [15]  and as a social phenomenon, [16]  we also see it as a result of cultural and political disputes, once it is 'always gendered, always raced, always economical and always sexual,' as Rogoff states. [17] For this author, space also ought to be taken from an epistemic perspective in order to think about geography and visual culture. For Rogoff, 'the textures that bind [geography and space] together are daily re-written through a word, a gaze, a gesture.' [18]

What this essay thus suggests is that narrative be seen as one of these gestures, an act of re-writing, and therefore eliciting, other geographies and spaces. Still according to Rogoff, we mean to say that '(…) while geography can be viewed as the relation between subjects and places refracted through orders of knowledge, state structures and national cultures, that relation is produced as social-cultural narratives which are geographically emplotted.' [19]

From this point of view, space and narrative, once taken as a matter of time and social relations, though not synonyms are closely connected. Both are concomitantly the result and production of social and cultural relations, which are weaved in them, and are, as well, sites from where other spatialities emerge. Seen in these terms, narratives invent geographies, and our concern is when and how narratives reorganize social space, veiling and unveiling differences. [20] In other words, we are interested in understanding how conflicts, located in the 'North'/'South' division, are geographically emplotted.

Geographies of Power and Narratives of Conflict

The issues related to space, identity, and discourse –  interwoven as they are with image and narrative and the signs of power and its relations –  exceed the limits of any borders. From this perspective, within the gesture inscribed in the narration –  in the textures of narratives –  categories such as 'North/South' are built; a gesture that either reiterates dominant powers, maximizing differences interwoven in the conflicts, or inscribes power relations in a more complex narrative mode.

Two particular events, an African-Muslim slave upheaval that happened in nineteenth-century Brazil, and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (twentieth century), lead to the understanding of how narratives help map the world, drawing lines and (un)setting borders according to the interests of those who are in control of the power. By analysing the representations of these conflicts, two groups of narratives have been found: one that reiterates the power from the perspective of the discursive project we have been criticizing here, and another one, which reinforces the existence of a more complex dimension of human spatiality.

What the first set of narratives reveals is constituted by what we call 'geographies of power': a mode of narrating and representing identities and places, which is impregnated with the imaginary built from within a type of power that is located in the very interests of hegemonic agents involved in the narratives. Under the light of dominant orders, these narratives insist on the politics of representations, those within which the rule is dichotomy rather than complexity. [21]

The term 'geographies of power' also emphasizes the fact that they bear certain types of narratives, conveyed by knowledge institutions, which give room to accounts and portraits that help build ways of mapping, seeing and experimenting the world. In other words, these narratives contribute to the production of other narratives –  as in a juxtaposition of stories –  that do not only nourish the geographies from which they are derived but also sustain the maintenance of the imaginaries within which they are inscribed. It is a matter of understanding, in this sense, that we are speaking of a world being narrated from the perspective of the episteme of power.

The Malês Uprising was a one-night battle fought in 1835 in the city of Salvador, Bahia. The analysis done in Brazilian and British newspapers identifies the process of building an imaginary that defines and reiterates the rebellious slaves as barbarians. [22]  They were the expressions of an oddity, as it is said by the Brazilian anthropologist Manuela da Cunha a strangeness that, 'in the first half of the nineteenth century, [made them] slaves par excellence, (...) the epitome of the danger (...).' [23]

From the perspective of a dominant historiographical narrative, for instance, the upheaval was explained as having been a purely religious struggle and seen as irrelevant, in spite of having caused a significant impact in the slavery system at the time. The critical Brazilian historian Reis [24]  argues that given the conditions of the country at that time and the people who had been trafficked from Africa to Brazil, the uprising had nothing of a supposed religious fanaticism. According to Reis, it was rather 'a revolt of Africans, and, as Africans, they launched themselves at it with the hope of improving their lives.' [25]  For this author, only the 'ethnocentric blindness, a characteristic of the early Slavery scholars' could see those men as 'mere religious fanatics.' [26]  The press narratives of the time were blunt in reiterating these appropriations.

As in the case of the narratives on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict found in Brazilian newspapers in the twentieth century, we notice the use of key strategies for articulating interests and power in the production of meaning. Some of these strategies are the reiteration of the supposed link between that conflict and religious concerns, along with other stereotyped and dominant senses upon the presence of the State of Israel. At the same time, these narratives veil the inscription of central actors in the scenario of the conflict itself –  the Palestinians, for example. In the vast majority of narratives analysed, including films produced by the British Colonial State, Palestine is represented as if it were 'the other side,' the primitive and the unknown.

If within the Brazilian upheaval context the African-Muslims are represented as the unknown, the Arab-Palestinians have their identity built within the sliding of the signifiers 'Muslim' and 'terrorist,' which move in the narratives according to political and economic interests of dominant actors. Whereas the African-Muslims represented as an absolute otherness, in the Israeli/Palestinian case, the Arabs, from a general perspective, are seen as Muslims and terrorists, a free and simplistic association, which makes them the sign of the other. In the two cases, and in narratives found both in Brazilian and in British newspapers, the references to Palestinians and Africans are always the affirmation of them being the radical otherness. [27]  Both the African-Muslims in the 19th Century and the Arab-Palestinians in the twentieth century are nothing but the representation of danger.

What these narratives outline demonstrates efforts to legitimize a self ('the West'/'the North'), to the detriment of the invention of its counterpart ('East' and 'South'). The spatiality we delve into, in the case of these narratives, is raised from within the economic and political relations produced by the most powerful agents, Brazil and England, to the detriment of the subalternized ones, Palestine and Africa. From within this spatiality, the first two are 'North', whereas Palestine and Africa are 'South'.

The geographies of power inscribed in these narratives highlight hegemonies, represented by the slave owners, dominant economic actors, good dealers and the block of 'Western'/'Northern' nations. They reverberate facts widely highlighted by historiography on colonial economic/political relations among Brazil, Portugal, and England (basically related to trade and commerce), and more recent ones, that draw the triangle England/Israel/Brazil (a 'Western/Northern' block of dominant economic interests). It is due to common political and economic interests that Brazil and England become central dominant actors in the representation of both conflicts.

The fact of one being geographically situated in the south (Brazil) and the other in the north (UK) does not prevent them from forming a block portraying a whole western imaginary that, in this case, turns out to be northern. The geographies of power inscribed in these narratives are, after all, the reiteration of the logic that constitutes the interests of the localities where power is installed. In this sense, geographies of power, within narrative spatiality, mean the act of demarcating hegemonic interests, while borders are blurred.

Through the analysis of distinct spatial and temporal conflicts, one sees how cultural idiosyncrasies and subjects are submitted to physical hegemonic categories, and to a reduction of the complex dimension of spatiality, in favour of the maintenance of the power installed in physical geographical locations. Our concern is to notice the layers of modern/colonial discourses intermingled within the production of meaning upon these political-cultural conflicts. In the analysis of both conflicts, Africa and Palestine are impregnated with colonial imaginaries, as the alliance Brazil/England does the work of weaving our understanding of who the other was supposed to be. It is within these geographies of power that Africa and Palestine are invented.

The Global South: A Discursive Perspective

More than looking at the representations themselves, this analysis is an exercise of unveiling the discursive geopolitics, which also marks the term 'Global South'. Rogoff reminds us that geography is 'a form of positioned spectatorship,' meaning that 'such categories as 'the Middle East' or 'the Far East' or 'the Sub-Saharan' are viewed from positions (in this instance, centres of colonial power) which name and locate and identify places in relation to themselves as the centre of the world' [28] . These acts of giving names, she continues, 'reflect certain desires for power and dominance and certain fantasies of distance and proximity and transgression.' [29]  In this sense, this reflection takes the 'Global South' as a term that is closely connected, at the same time, to the act of geographically naming places along with the attribution of contradictory and paradoxical meanings that comes with it. It refers to a spatiality marked by desires, powers and knowledge, which makes it a discursive constructed term.

Thus, this essay attempts to excavate its discursive formation by looking at the plotting of conflicts in distinct spatial/time narratives from also distinct geographical locations. Media –  in all its possible forms of expression –  is one of those institutions from/within where building discourses and portraying meanings on places and subjects occur. Therefore, looking at this issue through media and filmic narratives turns out to be a way of understanding how geographies of power are discursively constructed and how they possibly (re)invent other geographies.

It is from this perspective that we read the narratives of conflict within which geographies of power are inscribed: as part of the modern/colonial discursive project, they inexorably refer to locations, reverberating –  and setting the borders in the limits of –  the opposition 'North'/'South'. As a site where disjunctive times, desires and powers are weaved, they produce ways of seeing and being in the world. The fact of being so strongly affected by dominant powers contributes to a representation of stereotyped relations and identities, which means the invention of a space with no complexity.

One should not understand narratives as if producing an absolute and unique way of experiencing the world. By delving into the discursive formation, we also gather that the apparent opposition 'North/South' explodes itself in the ways interests and powers are weaved. This is, somehow, a way of understanding 'North/South' as a history. They are many –  never even identical to themselves –  and they displace constantly, depending on temporal and spatial disputes, dislocations and entanglements. Nevertheless, and this is exactly the challenge here, the precise moment of blurring borders is also the instant when dominant agents work on the interest of maintaining their power, of setting their borders. This is how discourse functions, this is the way the world goes round.

As the act of naming a place does not mean its uses, in the sense that relations are what build spaces, the 'Global South' must be understood as an ambiguous term as any other name referring to space and geographical determinations. It is a term that refers, altogether, to categories, locations and subjects very much marked by power, identity, narrative and space issues, which is exactly what calls our attention to the need of a constant critical look on its use and comprehension.

Therefore, taking it from a postcolonial perspective seems to be fundamental once it gets to be understood as a discourse formed from within the colonial/modern world system imaginary. Beyond being critical, a prospective attitude and a question on how to work with the 'Global South' as a practiced space [30]  are in demand. This is also in the core of postcolonial studies and challenges: from which perspective, with which analytical and methodological instruments should one think about the connections and complexities of societies built within the colonial experiences?

The critique towards subalternization and the colonial/modern world system has led Mignolo to argue for working in the fissures between modernity and coloniality. It is by looking at 'local histories' –  those that have been delegitimized when confronted with others transformed in global projects –  that one thinks from the perspective of what this author considers the 'colonial difference': sensitivities and sets of knowledge that did not fit the imaginary built within the colonial/modern world system. Mignolo's task is of an epistemic nature, and it is what he calls the 'border thinking' the perspective which might help unsettle the system.

To think from the perspective of the borders, or from outside the limits that have been invented by the imaginary being criticized, it is not an issue of bringing to life what has not existed. It is much more complex, as it consists of placing oneself at a point where dislocations and uncertainties, for instance, become sites of meaning rather than objects of disdain. It is the issue of going against an epistemic order, the one that has been produced under subalternization and within the colonial/modern world system.

What is being suggested here is that the Global South, as a location/space from where practices are seen, interpreted and recognized also demands a look from outside the borders within which it has been discursively inscribed. This reflection is a critique on a 'Northern' –  and 'Western' –  legitimized way of seeing and reflecting about the world. An issue that goes beyond Said's Orientalism, in the sense that it is a matter of going against an episteme that has successfully been constructed as the way to apprehend the world.

Mbembe [31]  is also in search of references within other epistemic legitimacies. Once you recognize Africa as the representation of 'nothingness', what one needs to do, according to him, is to be able to produce a 'different writing.' Some narratives of conflict trespass the geography of powers by presenting a more complex dimension of the space within which subjects and territorial issues are inscribed. They are much more concerned about representing subjectivities and identities in the game of power relations. By doing so, they produce a narrative that is much more about the power of geographies.

Palestine, whose territory is in all terms part of this enlarged idea of the Global South, has been cruelly massacred not only by strong warlike forces but also by binary and stereotyped discourses. It is a territory immersed in a conflict of such a complex cultural-political web, intermingling territorial, physical and subjective processes, that disentangling them becomes more difficult every day. In this sense, one may wonder, does looking from outside the borders also help us produce different writings on that specific conflict? If their geography is one built within everyday struggles, is it of any help to look at issues on identities, space and narratives generated from within that specific spatiality?

These same questions also fit what the idea of Global South suggests and evokes. From the perspective of this essay, it is not totally innocuous to think of the territory of Palestine, today, as the centre of what shall be called the Global South. As an arena of great disputes and conflicts, colonialist dominances, economic privations and many other forms of imposed cruelties, the Palestine territory, unfortunately in its worst dimension, signifies much of what the 'South', as a whole, has been submitted to.

Thus, from within this conflict and from an enlarged perspective, the Global South might be seen far beyond its emerging economies –  as dominant discourses might stick themselves to –  and much more affected by many conflicts of all kinds. It is a space of richness, creative dwellings, productive lands and strong processes of resistance as well as of economic inequalities, hunger, territorial disputes and legitimized subalternities.

In this sense, opening the map of the so-called Global South from the perspective of the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and many other 'Souths' around the globe might be very productive, once from there, the Global South can be seen as part of a complex spatiality. From this point of view, the gesture of understanding the term should also be the act of mapping existences and differences, which have constantly been disregarded by the games of power. This perspective, as it has been suggested, might be a way of unfolding narratives, and it certainly requires suspicious acts and willingness to produce different writings. Not an easy task, but a fundamental challenge.

[1]  Foucault's theories address the constitution of the human sciences from the birth of man as an object of study of modernity. Through his studies on discourse and power, Foucault outlines the genealogy of Western thought. According to Foucault, from the nineteenth century, we find an epistemological consciousness of man as a thinking being, a fact that denotes the production of knowledge as closely linked to historical processes, which implies a temporal fluidity of established truths. One of his essential books is  The Archaeology of Knowledge  (London and New York: Routledge, 2002).

[2]  Michel de Certeau,  A invenção do cotidiano – artes de fazer  (Petrópolis: Vozes, 2000). All references to De Certeau are free translations taken from the Brazilian edition book in Portuguese.

[3]  The issue of subalternity is closely related to Said's Orientalist perspective within which the author argues about the representation of the colonized. Another essential work on subalternity is Spivak's ' Can the Subaltern Speak? ', where the author demonstrates that the production of Western thought has obscured subaltern experiences by invoking an Eurocentric perspective, and producing the subaltern Other of Europe as anonymous. For both references: Edward Said,  'Representing the Colonized: Anthropology's Interlocutors,'  Critical Inquiry  15.2 (1989); and Gayatri  Spivak,  'Can the Subaltern Speak?' in  Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture  (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1988).

[4]  By addressing the issues of representation, identity, and cultural difference, for instance, in their seminal works, Paul Gilroy,  The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness  (London: Verso, 1993); Homi Bhabha,  The Location of Culture  (New York: Routledge, 1994); Edward Said,  Orientalismo  (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1990); Achille Mbembe,  On the Postcolony  (London: University of California Press, 2001); and Gayatri Spivak ( op cit. ) all refer to the so-called 'colonized world' as requiring distinct analytical instruments so as to be understood from a more complex perspective.

[5]  This is a reference to my research  Poetics of the Otherness – media narratives and the process of inventing the Other (CNPq, Brazilian Research Funding Agency, 2013), developed as part of a post-doctoral study at the Department of Media and Film Studies in the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.

[6]   D. Matar and Z. Harb, eds.,  Narrating the Conflict in the Middle East – Discourse, Image and Communications Practices in Lebanon and Palestine  (London: I.B.Tauris, 2013), p.4.

[7]  De Certeau, op cit.,  p.207.

[8]  Walter D. Mignolo,  Histórias locais/projetos globais: colonialidade, saberes subalternos e pensamento liminar  (Belo Horizonte: UFMG, 2003). All references to Mignolo are free translations taken from the Brazilian edition in Portuguese.

[9]  Mignolo ( op cit. ) is referring to Aníbal Quijano's concept of coloniality of power, which means the power of transforming the local in global, a system, according to Mignolo, that carries the memories of differences and colonial powers.

[10]  For our concern, the issue of subalternity, as it has been taken by Spivak, is fundamental once it locates the subalternized subject in the system of knowledge production. But it is important that one understands Mignolo's approaches as going beyond Spivak's concern. It is the fact of placing the problem from a colonial/modern imaginary that leads to the understanding of a process of knowledge of subalternization. Boaventura de Sousa Santos, also concerned about issues of colonialism and cultural identities, addresses the problem from a perspective that adds references to the statement of this text. For this author, the end of political colonialism does not mean the end of its cultural aspect. In terms of subjectivities and cultural relations, the power inscribed in the colonial system is still in progress. See Boaventura de Sousa Santos, 'Entre Próspero e Caliban: colonialismo, pós-colonialismo e inter-identidade' in Entre ser e estar : raízes, percursos e discursos da identidade , eds. M.I Ramalho and A.S Ribeiro (Porto: Afrontamento, 2002).

[11]  For more on this issue see: Santiago Castro-Gomez, 'Ciencias sociales, violencia epistémica y el problema de la 'invención del otro' in La colonialidad del saber: eurocentrismo y ciencias sociales . Perspectivas Latinoamericanas,  ed. E. Lander (Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 2000), p.246: http://bibliotecavirtual.clacso.org.ar/ar/libros/lander/castro.rtf

[12]  This reflection is taken from Mignolo's discussion of the subalternization process in 'Geopolitics of Sensing and Knowing: On (De)Coloniality, Border Thinking, and Epistemic Disobedience,' European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies (EIPCP), September 2011,  http://eipcp.net/transversal/0112/mignolo/en . Authors such as Fanon and Spivak are also of great importance for sustaining this way of approaching the problem.

[13]  Paul Ricoeur,  Tempo e Narrativa  (São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2010). All references to Ricoeur are free translations taken from the Brazilian edition in Portuguese.

[14]  In an interview given by Homi Bhabha to the Brazilian newspaper  O Globo on 14 January 2012.

[15]  Milton Santos,  Pensando o espaço do homem  (São Paulo: Edusp, 2007).

[16]  Henri Lebfevre,  The Production of Space  (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993).

[17]  Irit Rogoff,  Terra Infirma – Geography's Visual Culture  (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), p.28.

[18] Ibid .

[19]   Ibid ., p.22.

[20]  These observations echo arguments I have been developing since 2009 in a larger research study Narratives of Conflict: The Representation of the Other in Media Discourse (CNPq/Faperj). A general view on the research problem can be seen in Fernando Resende and Ana Paes, 'The Arab conflicts and the media discourse –  a Brazilian perspective' in Global Media and Communication  7.3 (2011): pp.215-219.

[21]  Ella Shohat,  Israeli Cinema: East/West and the Politics of Representation  (London: I.B.Tauris, 2010).

[22]  The 'Malês uprising', as it is historically known, was a short-lived yet significant uprising that took place in 1835 in the state of Bahia, Brazil. More about the social conditions of the time and the impacts of this uprising are discussed in this article. The term Malês is a corrupted form of 'Muslim', and refers to the group of slaves who were involved in the so-called 'rebellion'. For more details on this event and some of its aftermaths as a cultural-political conflict, see Fernando Resende, 'Inventing Muslims as the Other in Nineteenth-Century Brazil' in  Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication  6.2 (2013): pp.178-193.

[23]  Manuela Carneiro da Cunha,  Negros, estrangeiros – os escravos libertos e sua volta à África  (São Paulo: Cia. Das Letras, 2012), p.12.

[24]  José Reis,  Rebelião escrava no Brasil – a história do Levante dos Malês em 1835  (São Paulo: Cia. das Letras, 2003).

[25] Ibid ., p.270.

[26] Ibid ., p.149.

[27]  The set of analyses of contemporary documentaries and news in the main Brazilian and British newspapers about con­flicts help delineate some of the strategies that are used in narrating these battles, while showing the strength and the impact of religion in the process of meaning production. This has been discussed in the aforementioned research Poetics of the Otherness  (CNPq, 2013). Some of the sources of this study have been in the main newspapers in Brazil ( Jornal do Brasil , Folha da Manhã , Folha de São Paulo ) and some media sources in England (BBC, The Times ), along with film productions from both countries.

[28] Rogoff, op cit. , p.11

[29] Ibid .

[30]  For De Certeau (2000), this means thinking of space as part of an everyday signifying practices construction.

[31] Mbembe, op cit .

About the author

Fernando resende.

Dr Fernando Resende is a Senior Lecture and a researcher (CNPq) at the Department of Media and Cultural Studies (M.A. and Ph.D. Program in Communication, at Fluminense Federal University – UFF/Brazi l), where he also coordinates [LAN] Media Narratives Experimentation and Research Laboratory (UFF/CNPq). Local Coordinator of Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate inCultural Studies in Literary Interzones (UFF/Bergamo/Perpignan/Tübingen/New Delhi). Resende is also a visiting Research Scholar in the Centre for Media Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, where he is also an Associate Member of the Centre for Palestine Studies (2013/CNPq). Resende has a PhD in Communication from the Universidade de São Paulo - USP/Brazil. His research is primarily interested in the study of narratives of conflicts and diasporic movements, dealing with issues related to both physical and symbolic zones.

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2021 Articles

Global Southerners in the North

Francis, Ama R.

Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) scholarship contends that international law privileges nation-states in the Global North over those in the Global South. The literature primarily draws on a Westphalian conception of the North-South divide in analyzing asymmetrical issues of power in the global political economy. Given the expansion of global capitalism, however, the nation-state-based mode of analysis misses the fact that there are Global Souths in the geographic North and Global Norths in the geographic South. This Essay makes two theoretical claims. First, it argues that racial capitalism renders expendable populations across the geographic North and South, destabilizing the Westphalian North-South structure. Global Southerners, defined by their positionality as capitalism’s externalities, exist across the North-South schema. The Essay uses climate displacement as an example. The adverse effects of carbon pollution combine with postcolonial legacy and contemporary imperialism to transmogrify the lives, livelihoods, and homelands of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) around the world into the hidden cost of industrialization. Climate change, an issue that challenges strict notions of national borders, serves as germane material in the Essay’s work to deterritorialize the notion of the North-South divide. Second, this Essay names the existence of Global Southerners in the geographic North as a heretofore unnamed site of resistance for reordering the North-South divide in international law. It leverages the author’s deterritorialized view of the Global South to claim that Global Southerners are political agents with the capacity to shift the global political economy of international law. Although others have begun to reimagine the Global South beyond geographical lines in order to articulate a theory of resistance in international law, this Essay seeks to break new ground by highlighting the particular power of Global Southerners residing in the geographic North. As such, this Essay reinvigorates the central TWAIL question of how to shift power along the North-South divide.

• International law
• Environmental justice--Political aspects
• Climatic changes--Political aspects
• Climatic changes

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Global Southerners in the North

By Ama Ruth Francis

Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) scholarship contends that international law privileges nation-states in the Global North over those in the Global South. The literature primarily draws on a Westphalian conception of the North-South divide in analyzing asymmetrical issues of power in the global political economy. Given the expansion of global capitalism, however, the nation-state-based mode of analysis misses the fact that there are Global Souths in the geographic North and Global Norths in the geographic South. This Essay makes two theoretical claims.

First, it argues that racial capitalism renders expendable populations across the geographic North and South, destabilizing the Westphalian North-South structure. Global Southerners, defined by their positionality as capitalism’s externalities, exist across the North-South schema. The Essay uses climate displacement as an example. The adverse effects of carbon pollution combine with postcolonial legacy and contemporary imperialism to transmogrify the lives, livelihoods, and homelands of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) around the world into the hidden cost of industrialization. Climate change, an issue that challenges strict notions of national borders, serves as germane material in the Essay’s work to deterritorialize the notion of the North-South divide.

Second, this Essay names the existence of Global Southerners in the geographic North as a heretofore unnamed site of resistance for reordering the North-South divide in international law. It leverages the author’s deterritorialized view of the Global South to claim that Global Southerners are political agents with the capacity to shift the global political economy of international law. Although others have begun to reimagine the Global South beyond geographical lines in order to articulate a theory of resistance in international law, this Essay seeks to break new ground by highlighting the particular power of Global Southerners residing in the geographic North. As such, this Essay reinvigorates the central TWAIL question of how to shift power along the North-South divide.

Read the article  Global Southerners in the North  in Columbia Law School's Scholarship Archive. 

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Part V: The Global North (North America and Europe)

Chapter 15: The Global North: Introducing the Region

Lara Braff and Katie Nelson

What is the Global North ? The Global North does not refer to a geographic region in any traditional sense but rather to the relative power and wealth of countries in distinct parts of the world (figure 15.1). The chapters in this section explore the construction and complexity of gender within the Global North: particularly, the United States, Canada, and Belgium. To do so, we first consider how the Global North and South divide came to exist in the popular imagination. However, we should note that although the Global North is on the whole powerful and wealthy, it is not monolithic. Societies within it are internally stratified and diverse such that not everyone in the Global North is rich and powerful.

Attempts to categorize the world order have been based more on politics and economics than geography. These include East and West; developed and developing nations; and the First, Second, and Third Worlds. For example, if East/West were geographic entities, then all nations west of the Prime Meridian (i.e., the United States, Canada, and Latin America nations) would be grouped together, while all nations to the east (i.e., countries of Europe, Africa, and Asia) would be grouped together. But this is not the case. Rather, the “West” is meant to refer to countries—particularly European nations and the United States—that benefited from the exploits of colonialism, achieving a higher quality of life and more power than the East. Similarly, the terminology of “developed” and “developing” nations indexes a power differential along with the ethnocentric assumption that all countries follow a singular idealized trajectory. Anthropologists and social theorists have critiqued this notion, insisting that societies change over time, proceeding along varied developmental paths.

The First, Second, and Third World terminology developed in the mid-twentieth century during the Cold War to categorize nations based on their participation in the conflict between the democratic United States (and its allies) and the Communist Soviet Union (and its allies). The First World was said to include economically developed, high-income, politically stable capitalist nations. The Second World comprised Communist nations that despite stable incomes and decent social conditions were viewed by the First World as economically and politically unstable due to their totalitarian governments. The Third World referred to previously colonized nations (nonaligned) that both the United States and the Soviet Union were trying to incorporate into their respective political-economic orders. Third World leaders have critiqued this schema, asserting that they were not just pawns in the US-Soviet conflict; rather, they were actively engaged in improving their own social conditions, creating stable national identities, and participating in the global community (e.g., in the 1960s, some Third World countries joined the United Nations for the first time).

In the late twentieth century, the Global North and South terminology replaced previous descriptors of the global order. It was generally agreed that the Global North would include the United States, Canada, England, nations of the European Union, as well as Singapore, Japan, South Korea, and even some countries in the southern hemisphere: Australia, and New Zealand. The Global South, on the other hand, would include formerly colonized countries in Africa and Latin America, as well as the Middle East, Brazil, India, and parts of Asia. Many of these countries are still marked by the social, cultural, and economic repercussions of colonialism, even after achieving national independence. The Global South remains home to the majority of the world’s population, but that population is relatively young and resource-poor, living in economically dependent nations.

Like prior attempts to characterize nations, the Global North/South distinction simplifies the world order, ignoring internal variation within both the North and South, while negating commonalities that exist between these large and diverse entities. Further, there are outliers that muddy the attempt to specify a clear North/South divide. For example, where do China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia fit? In terms of their economies and power, they resemble the North, but their political and social organization can also resemble the South. All global terminology systems discussed here are historically situated, politicized attempts to organize nations into a straightforward world order that is, in fact, quite complicated and increasingly interconnected.

The World Economy

A rapidly globalized economy has highlighted the imagined divide between the North and South. According to Wallerstein’s world systems theory , a global capitalist system separates countries into the core (the North), semiperiphery, and periphery (the South) based primarily on their economic participation (Wallerstein 1974). His theory is largely influenced by Karl Marx, who saw the economy as the foundation of society that determined all cultural phenomena. According to Marx, under capitalism, societies are composed of the bourgeoisie (the owners who control the means of production, e.g., the factories) and the workers (who labor and produce goods in exchange for wages). The owner’s motive to maximize profit is achieved by exploiting the workers, who are paid less than what their labor is worth and who grow alienated from themselves, other people, and their labor. Despite the ideological attempts of the owners to obscure exploitation, Marx believed that the workers would eventually realize the systemic injustices of capitalism, rise up, and replace it with Communism.

For Wallerstein, similar actors and structural inequalities operate within the global capitalist system. The core nations of the Global North act like the owners, controlling multinational corporations that extract raw material and exploit labor from peripheral nations of the Global South. The core nations thereby amass profit that benefits them, hardening the divide between the haves and have-nots. Thus, core nations remain wealthy, politically stable, and culturally dominant, while peripheral nations remain economically dependent, politically unstable, and at the mercy of cultural trends. The semiperipheral nations are said to be in transition from the periphery to the core (see figure 15.2).

Like all binaries, the division of the world into core and periphery, North and South, is overly simplistic and assumes these are fundamentally different and unequal entities. Yet, we are not a world indelibly marked as wealthy or poor, producers or consumers, powerful or powerless. For many anthropologists, the world order is far more complex and interrelated. They consider, for example, the process of glocalization , whereby people around the world alter globalized goods, ideas, and practices to fit their own lived experiences. This is not the passive, wholesale adoption of Global Northern lifeways but the active adaptation of them into culturally relevant forms. Similarly, globalization does not just flow from the North to the South. From food to clothes to music and media, people in the Global North also consume and adapt the cultural products of the Global South.

Arjun Appadurai addresses this complexity by describing several global “scapes”: social and cultural flows that move around the world in multiple directions, affecting nations and people in diverse ways. As he puts it, the “new global cultural economy has to be seen as a complex, overlapping, disjunctive order” (Appadurai 1996, 32). This order comprises five “scapes”:

• ethnoscape (the movement of people)
• financescape (the movement of money)
• technoscape (the movement of technologies)
• mediascapes (the movement of media)
• ideoscapes (the movement of ideas)

These globalscapes are interlinked. Take, for example, cell phones: as objects, they are part of the technoscape that people use to access the mediascape through which they engage with the ideoscape. This idea of globalscapes helps us see the dynamic nature of people, things, and ideas that interact to defy any simplistic static division of North and South.

Engendering the Global North

While globalization is an interactive process, the Global North has undeniably played a leading role in it. The economic, political, and cultural hegemony of the Global North, hardened by colonialism, has affected many aspects of social life elsewhere, including gender. As anthropologists and gender scholars argue, there is nothing natural or universal about the North’s binary gender system (male/female). There are other options: anthropological studies have described nonbinary gender systems with varied levels of gender inequality. For example, the Two-Spirit category among some Native American societies is a third gender category, one that recognizes that an individual’s gender identity may not be the same as their cisgender embodiment. Two-Spirit individuals possess both male and female qualities that uniquely position them to interact with the supernatural realm. This is not considered to be a transgressive category but rather a transcendent one.

In the Global North, however, there exists a dominant portrayal of gender as a strict binary: male or female, whereby male is privileged over female. This was not always the case: the archaeological record and observations of modern hunting and gathering groups (used as a model for early human societies that were likewise small-scale, family-based, and fairly egalitarian) reveal societies with gender roles but less gender stratification. Such societies cannot afford to exclude half the population—the women—from the daily work of subsistence and survival. Indeed, women, in both ancient and modern hunting and gathering groups, make an essential contribution that complements men’s activities. For example, these women supply the majority of the group’s daily calories through the arduous labor of gathering wild plants and digging up tubers. It was only recently in human history, about ten thousand years ago with the advent of agriculture and permanent settlements, that a strict division of labor emerged that served to lower women’s status. Men began to dominate the public sphere, relegating women to the (devalued) private domestic sphere. We see this gender hierarchy perpetuated within several domains, including philosophy, Christianity, and science.

Early Greek philosophers like Aristotle (384–322 BCE) and Galen (130–210 AD) were convinced of men’s innate dominance over women. As Aristotle (1905, 34) writes: “The male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; and the one rules and the other is ruled; this principle, of necessity, extends to all mankind.” This statement asserts a universal inequality between the sexes that justifies women’s subservience to men. The Bible, and texts from other Abrahamic religions, convey similar ideas, as reflected by this famous quote from the Book of Genesis (2: 7):

And the Lord God constructed the rib which He had taken from the earth-creature into a woman and brought her to the earth-man. And the earth-man said, this time is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called wo-man, for from man was she taken.

Throughout the Middle Ages (fourth to fourteenth century), many stories in the Bible were read as reinforcing male superiority. Men were often portrayed as prominent actors, with women making secondary contributions. As people saw the church as a prominent source of authority, they further internalized this gender ideology.

It is not until the Enlightenment (1650–1800), or the so-called Age of Reason, that new sources of authority emerge as people use scientific principles to challenge biblical accounts of the world. Through firsthand investigations of nature and society, people were no longer dependent on religious authority to answer their questions; they could now seek answers via their own empirical observations and rationality. Yet, there was nothing truly “objective” about these scientific inquiries. With respect to gender, a misogynous view of women still influenced the questions and answers of (predominantly male) scientists.

Take, for example, the question of whether men are more intelligent than women. In the eighteenth century, “scientific” illustrations of male and female bodies grossly exaggerated their proportions, showing males with extremely large heads and females with small heads but large hips (see figure 15.3) that conveyed their alleged inferior intellect and their fundamental child-bearing function (Biewen 2018).

Later, in the nineteenth century, the gender question was addressed through the then-popular pseudoscience of phrenology: the examination of skull features that allegedly reveal mental qualities and character. Such analyses pointed to women’s “low foreheads” as proof that they lacked the necessary cognitive abilities for participation in intellectual pursuits (Staum 2003, 64). We now explain differences in male and female skull size as due to sexual dimorphism: since male bodies are (on average) slightly larger than female bodies, their skulls must be proportionate to the rest of their bodies. Further, there is no proven correlation between skull size and brain function: skull size does not correlate with intellectual capacity (Gould 1981). Nevertheless, the attempt to scientifically prove men’s worth, like the attempt to theologically prove women’s secondary status, served to affirm a strict binary gender hierarchy. In many parts of the Global North, this hierarchy has had profound social consequences: it justified the disenfranchisement of women in civic life and formal employment and excluded gender minorities from institutions such as marriage and the military.

Gender in the Global North Today

By the end of the twentieth century, most of the claims made by pseudoscience about gender had been corrected. Nevertheless, many of the underlying ideas and assumptions it produced persisted, including those that justified inequality for women and gender minorities. For instance, by the year 2000, women in the United States on average earned seventy-one cents per every dollar that a man earned (Graf et al. 2019). By 2020, that rate rose to eighty-five cents, although, paradoxically, women for the first time also made up more than half the workforce (Omeokwe 2020). Transgendered people in many parts of the Global North face discrimination, violence, anemic legal protections and obstacles accessing health care, among other concerns. While we explore some of these contemporary gender-related issues in the Global North, we also recognize that gender is dynamic and responsive to larger social, cultural, and political forces.

Gender and Sexual Violence

The Global North in the twentieth century is marked by a gradual arc of increasing gender equity; however, some countries, and particular groups within these countries, continue to experience high rates of gender-based violence. In the United States, Canada, and Australia, for example, ethnic minorities and Indigenous women tend to experience the highest rates of such violence. The concept of intersectionality allows us to understand the compounding factors of oppression (such as poverty, racism, sexism, social neglect, among others) that contribute to gender violence within some communities in the Global North. For instance, in the United States, murder is the third top cause of death for American Indian women, which is more than twice the rate than for white women (Heron 2018). In Canada, Indigenous women are sixteen times more likely than white women to be murdered or go missing (National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls 2019). And in Australia, aboriginal women are thirty-two times more likely to be hospitalized as a result of domestic violence and ten times more likely to die from a violent assault than non-Indigenous women (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2018).

Sexual violence continues to plague the Global North, despite some progress overall. These issues received increased attention in the late 2010s. Most notably, the #MeToo movement gained international traction when a series of actresses and celebrities came forward accusing Harvey Weinstein, a US film producer, of rape and sexual assault. The Twitter hashtag #MeToo exploded after actress Alyssa Milano used it in a tweet to highlight her connection to other survivors of sexual assault. Hundreds of thousands of women joined in by disclosing that they, too, had been sexually assaulted or abused. The movement was later criticized for ignoring the origin of the phrase, which was coined by activist Tarana Burke in 2006. Many claimed that Burke’s work to bring awareness to the frequency of sexual assault had been overlooked because as an African American woman her voice was not heard or respected as much as white women’s or celebrities’ voices.

In the United States the #MeToo movement is credited with helping center sexual assault within the national narrative. Nevertheless, US society, like other societies, still struggles with how to talk about and address this problem. Further, awareness of sexual assault within other gendered populations (such as the transgender community) receives even less attention.

Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Identities

Similar to the increasing awareness and sensitivity to sexual assault, societal awareness of the lived experiences of transgender and gender-diverse people has improved in recent years. Transgendered people are those whose biological sex at birth is inconsistent with their gender identity. In addition, some Northern societies are increasingly recognizing people who do not identify as male or female, or whose gender identity is fluid. Languages are adapting to these changes by including new pronouns, verbs, and nouns. For instance, some English-speaking populations are using “they/them” or “xe/xem” instead of “he/she.” In Spanish, words ending with “a” are usually considered feminine, and those ending with “o” are usually considered masculine. However, some Spanish-speaking populations are now using the gender-neutral “x” in place of “a” or “o” at the end of words, as in “Latinx.”

Gender-diverse people are increasingly visible in popular television programs and movies, and some countries have established policies to protect their rights. For instance, in 2014, the Danish parliament passed legislation that allows legal gender recognition for transgender people based solely on their self-determined identity (Transgender Europe 2014). In 2016, a similar law was passed in Norway. However, many countries in Europe do not have such policies or protections, or they require a psychiatric or medical diagnosis for a legal gender change (Transgender Europe 2016). This is compounded by societal stigma and lack of public understanding, which results in widespread discrimination and marginalization of transgender people. For instance, in the United States, 29 percent of transgender people surveyed live in poverty, and 30 percent had been homeless at some point in their lives (according to a 2015 survey conducted by National Center for Transgender Equality). Their unemployment rate was 15 percent—three times the national average (National Center for Transgender Equality 2016). Transgender people are also more likely to avoid seeking medical care because they experience discrimination, disrespect, and even harassment in health-care settings.

In addition, transgender and gender nonconforming people have faced discrimination in bathroom use, particularly in the United States. For instance, 16 American states have considered legislation that would restrict access to multiuser bathrooms (and other sex-segregated facilities) on the basis of one’s sex assigned at birth (Kralik 2019). Although most of these efforts failed or were withdrawn, the issue still remains highly contentious. As anthropologist Robert Myers stated, “Americans match deep convictions about males and females with binary spaces to perform those necessary biological functions. . . . the bathroom is the central space where beliefs and anxieties about gender, the body, identity, privacy and safety collide. It is a culture war waged over symbolic spaces reinforcing constructions of how we see ourselves privately and publicly” (Myers 2018). While bathrooms remain politically charged gendered spaces, people are becoming aware of gender diversity in ways that are starting to rattle their prior convictions. Many colleges and universities, and a variety of public and private institutions, are designating gender-neutral bathrooms that are available for anyone to use, regardless of their gender identity or expression.

The problems of restrictions on transgender people’s bathroom use, sexual assault, and sexual violence are tied to a lingering system of patriarchy that remains deeply embedded in societies in the Global North. Patriarchy has long been a central structural element of many societies and is characterized by a set of culturally specific symbols, behaviors, and ideas that are male dominated, male identified, and male-centric. This structure normalizes a worldview of binary gender, gender stereotypes, and the limitation of gender roles, among other things. Patriarchy reaches deep into the fabric of societies, which makes its existence difficult to see but profoundly influential. For instance, in the Global North, patriarchy influences inflexible notions of what it means to be “feminine” and “masculine.” These notions are seen in the expectations for cisgender men to serve in the military and for women to be more responsible for domestic work. They are also seen in the paucity of men employed in care services, such as nursing and childcare, and a low number of women in manual labor-intensive work like construction or in political leadership positions.

Consider another example. You may have heard a popular riddle that goes something like this: “A father and son have a car accident and are both badly hurt. They are both taken to separate hospitals. When the boy is taken in for an operation, the surgeon says, ‘I cannot do the surgery because this is my son.’ How is this possible?” The trick (spoiler alert!) is that the surgeon is, of course, the boy’s mother. This riddle is perplexing to many people who have been socialized to associate being a surgeon with being a man. The possibility that a woman (or mother) might be the surgeon seems so unlikely that we unconsciously do not even consider it. These types of associations are embedded within a patriarchal order that influences how people in the Global North see the world and their place in it.

Another manifestation of patriarchy can be seen in hypermasculine gender expressions, sometimes referred to as toxic masculinity . In the Global North, this form of masculinity tends to be characterized by qualities such as a competitive nature, physical strength, emotional suppression, rejection of femininity, risk taking, and violence. In January 2019 the American Psychological Association released a set of new guidelines for psychologists who work with males. The guidelines suggested that being enculturated into a traditional masculine ideology does harm not only to women and people with nonconforming gender identities but also to boys and men. The guidelines highlighted the impact of toxic masculinity on boys and men, which includes poor mental and physical health outcomes (American Psychological Association 2018). For example, toxic masculinity deems anger as the only appropriate emotion men can express, which can lead to the distancing of men from others, resulting in difficulty developing and sustaining close relationships. Further, since toxic masculinity dictates that men should be strong and independent, some men feel they cannot seek help from others for their mental or physical issues.

Despite the influence of patriarchy, many of these gendered characteristics have been changing in recent years. More men and women are entering into nontraditional gender employment, and more women are taking on leadership roles. Men are increasingly active in childrearing, and some are even opting to stay home and raise children while their spouse works outside the home. Gender, and the influence of patriarchy, is in flux in the Global North.

Just as the Global North/South divide was developed to give order to an increasingly complex interrelated world system, the male/female divide, as rendered in the Global North, was developed to make sense of different yet interrelated sexed bodies. These bodies came to be understood in binary and hierarchical terms: one was either male or female, with male privileged over female. While in other places, males, females, and other genders had been understood in distinctive ways, the value-laden gender hierarchy of the Global North was disseminated widely due to the region’s social, economic, and political power. To denaturalize these value-laden divisions—North/South, male/female—we must see them for what they are: social-historical constructs that are tied to power and carry real consequences for the lives of men, women, and sexual minority communities. And yet gender is dynamic: as we have discussed, gender roles are in flux, women are asserting their rights, members of sexual minority groups are being heard, and masculine ideals are being challenged.

The chapters in Part V : The Global North present anthropological research that showcases some of the gendered experiences of men and women from different places in the social hierarchy in highly unequal and stratified region s . Chapter 16 examines mothers in upper-middle – class households in a large northeast city. In online forums these women compete to perform “proper” motherhood. Their online performances serve as practice for how they will interact with their peers as ideal mothers in real life. Male sex workers are the focus of c hapter 17. Here we see how gendered stereotypes of sex workers blind legis l ators and social service agencies to the violence and vulnerability of young men in the sex trade. In this case, an intersectional approach reveals the subordination and structural violence these men experience. Chapters 18 and 19 explore the gendered lives of migrants living in the Global North. Muslim women in Belgium respond to discrimination and reclaim their age ncy and resist marginalization. Chapter 19 shows how undocumented migrants from Mexico struggle to redefine their roles as fathers when children are left behind in the home village or parents are deported to Mexico leaving children behind in the U nited S tates . In these transnational families, fathers must negotiate different norms and expectations of parenthood on both sides of the border. Finally, the profile at the end of this i ntroduction highlights the work of Kathleen Steinhauer , who fought for the rights and recognition of I ndigenous women in Canada.

c isgender: refers to people whose gender identity corresponds to their sex at birth.

Global North: does not refer to a geographic region in any traditional sense but rather to the relative power and wealth of countries in distinct parts of the world. The Global North encompasses the rich and powerful regions such as North America, Europe, and Australia.

g lobalization: the worldwide intensification of social and economic interactions and interdependence between disparate parts of the world.

g localization: a combination of the words “globalization” and “localization.” Refers to ways that a cultural product is developed by one culture and adopted by the local culture to accommodate local needs and preferences.

h egemony: the dominance of one group over another supported by legitimating norms and ideas that normalize dominance. Using collective consent rather than force, dominant social groups maintain power and social inequalities are naturalized.

i ntersectionality: refers to the interconnected nature of social categories such as race, class, and

gender that creates overlapping systems of discrimination or disadvantage. The goal of an intersectional analysis is to understand how racism, sexism, and homophobia (for example) interact together to impact our identities and how we live in our society.

m isogynous/misogyny: refers to the contempt or hatred for women, often expressed as prejudice or discrimination.

p atriarchy: a dynamic system of power and inequality that privileges men and boys over women and girls in social interactions and institutions. Patriarchy describes a society with a male-dominated political and authority structure and an ideology that privileges males over females in domestic and public spheres.

t oxic m asculinity : tends to be characterized by qualities such as a competitive nature, physical strength, emotional suppression, rejection of femininity, risk taking, and violence.

w orld s ystems t heory: Developed by Emmanuel Wallerstein to describe a global capitalist system that separates countries into the core (the North), semiperiphery, and periphery (the South) based primarily on their economic participation.

Bibliography

American Psychological Association. 2018. APA Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men . Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity a t Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Aristotle. 1905. Aristotl e’ s Politics . Oxford: Clarendon.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. 2018. Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence in Australia, 2018 . Canberra: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

Biewen, John. “Skeleton War.” MEN. Scene on Radio, August 8, 2018. http://www.sceneonradio.org/tag/season-3.

Gould, Stephen Jay. 1981. The Mismeasure of Man . New York: W.W. Norton.

Graf, Nikki, Anna Brown, and Eileen Patten. 2019. “The Narrowing, but Persistent, Gender Gap in Pay.” Fact Tank . Washington, DC: Pew Research Center.

Heron, Melonie. 2018. Deaths: Leading Causes for 2016. National Vital Statistics Report s 67, no. 6. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics.

Kralik, Joellen. 2019. “‘Bathroom Bill’ Legislative Tracking.” Washington, DC: National Conference of State Legislatures.

Myers, Robert. 2018. “That Most Dangerous, Sacred American Space, the Bathroom.” 10, no. 1 Anthropology Now .

National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. 2019. Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, Volume 1a. National Inquiry, Canadian Government.

National Center for Transgender Equality. 2016. The Report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. Washington, DC: National Center for Transgender Equality.

Omeokwe, Amara. 2020. “Women Overtake Men as Majority of U.S. Workforce.” Washington Post . January 10, 2020.

Staum, Martin. 2003. Labeling People: French Scholars on Society, Race and Empire, 1815–1848 . Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Transgender Europe. 2014. “Denmark Goes Argentina!” June 11, 2014. https://tgeu.org/denmark-goes-argentina/ .

Transgender Europe. 2016. “34 Countries in Europe Make this Nightmare a Reality.” February 23, 2015. https://tgeu.org/nightmare/ .

Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century . Studies in Social Discontinuity. New York: Academic Press.

does not refer to a geographic region in any traditional sense but rather to the relative power and wealth of countries in distinct parts of the world. The Global North encompasses the rich and powerful regions such as North America, Europe, and Australia.

Developed by Emmanuel Wallerstein to describe a global capitalist system that separates countries into the core (the North), semiperiphery, and periphery (the South) based primarily on their economic participation.

a combination of the words “globalization” and “localization.” Refers to ways that a cultural product is developed by one culture and adopted by the local culture to accommodate local needs and preferences.

the worldwide intensification of social and economic interactions and interdependence between disparate parts of the world.

the dominance of one group over another supported by legitimating norms and ideas that normalize dominance. Using collective consent rather than force, dominant social groups maintain power and social inequalities are naturalized.

refers to individuals who identify with the sex and gender assigned to them at birth.

refers to the contempt or hatred for women, often expressed as prejudice or discrimination.

refers to the interconnected nature of social categories such as race, class, and gender that create overlapping systems of discrimination or disadvantage. The goal of an intersectional analysis is to understand how racism, sexism, and homophobia (for example) interact together to impact our identities and how we live in our society.

Patriarchy describes a society with a male-dominated political and authority structure and an ideology that privileges males over females in domestic and public spheres.

tends to be characterized by qualities such as a competitive nature, physical strength, emotional suppression, rejection of femininity, risk taking, and violence.

About the authors

name: Lara Braff

Lara Braff is an anthropology professor at Grossmont College, where she teaches cultural and biological anthropology courses and serves as a co-coordinator for the college’s Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) initiative. She is a coeditor of Explorations: An Open Invitation to Biological Anthropology , a free, open access textbook. She received her BA in anthropology and Spanish from the University of California at Berkeley and her MA and PhD in comparative human development from the University of Chicago, where she specialized in medical anthropology. Her research has focused on the cultural nuances and social disparities that shape family-making and assisted reproduction in Mexico City.

name: Katie Nelson

Katie Nelson is instructor of anthropology at Inver Hills Community College. Her research focuses on migration, identity, belonging, and citizenship(s) in human history and in the contemporary United States, Mexico, and Morocco. She received a BA in anthropology and Latin American studies from Macalester College, an MA in anthropology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, an MA in education and instructional technology from the University of Saint Thomas, and a PhD from CIESAS Occidente (Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Socia l Center for Research and Higher Education in Social Anthropology), based in Guadalajara, Mexico. She is Associate Editor for the Teaching and Learning Anthropology Journal . Her publications include Explorations: An Open Invitation to Biological Anthropology , an edited textbook with Shook, Braff and Aguilera (American Anthropological Association, 2019), Doing Field Projects: Methods and Practice for Social and Anthropological Research , with John Forrest (forthcoming) and several other book chapters and journal articles.

Gendered Lives Copyright © by Lara Braff and Katie Nelson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Global Inequality: The Divide Between North and South

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