Activity 1

Crossword Puzzle
 “Has a powerful
political function”

“Changing geopolitical
circumstances means
these terms each have
specific historical
nuances”
• The term “global south” and similar categories are relevant
to the study of globalization; (as a result of large scale
political projects –MAY SERVE AS RHETORICAL ANCHORS
IN A GRAMMAR THAT REPRESENTS GLOBAL DIFFERENCE
• Levander and Mignolo (2011) “the important question may
not be “what the global south is” but rather “for whom
and under what conditions the global south becomes
relevant”
• Sparke (2007) – The Global South is everywhere , but it is
also somewhere and that somewhere , located at the
intersection of entangled political geographies of
dispossession and repossession.
 GLOBAL SOUTH IS…
• Both a reality and provisional work in progress
– Examine how actors on the ground, particularly from
the global south itself, mobilize the concept
– Should not be defined a priori, but rather articulated
in the context of provisional and mutable processes of
political praxis. Allows us to historicize it and be
mindful
– Concomitantly, the global south can be located in
between the objective reality of global inequality and
the various subjective experiences to these.
– There is no uniform global south and academic
analysis is in a better position to document its
articulation rather than set its ontological limits
 Emphasizing the STATE
• Former colonial entities are almost categorizable as
states in an international system of governance.
• Terms like 3rd world, developing world, global south
are all ways to represent interstate inequalities
• The term interstate is crucial because we are
discussing imbalances of aggregate economic and
political power between states.
• Focus on the state and interstate dynamics creates a
methodological narrowing, which ignores the richness
of non-state politics.
 WHAT IS HIDDEN WHEN WE
EMPHASIZE THE STATE?
• There are forms of power inequality that cannot be
reduced to discussions of state politics
• Not all of the formal colonial entities are states (IP’s)
• The process of globalization places into question
geographically – bound conceptions of poverty and
inequality
– Increase and intensification of global flows spread both poverty
and affluence.
– Spaces of underdevelopment in developed countries may mirror
the poverty of the global south and spaces of affluence in the
developing world mirror of the global north.
– Various forms of inequality cut across national boundaries and
Marx was correct to claim “the proletariat has no country”
– There is a global south in the global north and vice versa
 Reasons why insist on analyzing state
and interstate inequalities?
• Decolonization process produced states now recognized as
sovereign under the system of international law promoted by
UN.
• Solutions to problems produced by globalization are largely
forwarded and articulated on a state level.
• The state remains the main mechanism for social transfers,
making it the strongest vehicle for social redistribution
• State’s ability to protect the environment. The global
environmental crisis is a reflection of interstate inequality
• Phenomena largely considered as transnational are the
results of state policies
• State as an important unit of analysis
• In the global south, the struggle for
autonomous governance is largely waged
as a struggle to democratize the state in
order to make it responsive to the needs
of the people on the ground rather than
the demands of external power.
Activity 2

Tableau
The Rise of the Global South