The Global South

What is the Global South?

Global South is a term gaining increasing acceptance among academic and policy circles. Simply put, it includes countries outside Europe and North America, i.e., regions of Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania. Global South is a less-hierarchical term than its predecessors (Third World or Developing World) and encompasses mostly (though not all) low-income and often politically or culturally marginalized countries.

Why Global South?

The production and dissemination of knowledge is shaped by power relations. Western theories and works feature prominently in our syllabuses, policy-making, and the general way we think about our world. These voices are taken as the universal default. This is not a natural process, rather it is constructed over centuries through sociopolitical forces (colonialism being one of them).

Academic-ish is thus our attempt at correcting this imbalance by focusing on those issues and ideas emerging from the Global South that have been sidelined or completely omitted from mainstream discourse.

References

Dados, N. & Connell, R. (2012). The Global South. Contexts, 11(1), 12-13.