GLOBAL DIVIDES-

THE NORTH AND

THE SOUTH
CHAPTER 6
Global North and Global South are terms that denote a method of
grouping countries based on their defining characteristics with regard to
socioeconomics and politics. According to the United Nations Conference
on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Global South broadly
comprises Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia (excluding
Israel, Japan, and South Korea), and Oceania (excluding Australia and
New Zealand). Most of the Global South's countries are commonly
identified as lacking in their standard of living, which includes having
lower incomes, high levels of poverty, high population growth rates,
inadequate housing, limited educational opportunities, and deficient
health systems, among other issues. Additionally, these countries' cities
are characterized by their poor infrastructure.
Opposite to the Global South is the Global North, which the
UNCTAD describes as broadly comprising Northern
America and Europe, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Australia,
and New Zealand. As such, the two terms do not refer to the
Northern Hemisphere or the Southern Hemisphere, as many
of the Global South's countries are geographically located in
the former and, similarly, a number of the Global North's
countries are geographically located in the latter.
More specifically, the Global North consists of the world's
developed countries, whereas the Global South consists of the
world's developing countries and least developed countries. The
Global South classification, as used by governmental and
developmental organizations, was first introduced as a more open
and value-free alternative to "Third World“ and, likewise,
potentially "valuing" terms, such as developed and developing.
Countries of the Global South have also been described as being
newly industrialized or in the process of industrializing; many of
them are current or former subjects of colonialism.
The Brandt line
◦ is a slightly more old-fashioned way of dividing the
globe between rich and poor countries. The more
wealthy countries are typically located in the Global
North (at the top of the world map) and the poorer
countries, such as those in Africa and Asia are in the
Global South.
Characteristics of the North Characteristics of the South

1/4 of the world's people 3/4 of the world's people

4/5 of world's income 1/5 of world's income

Average life expectancy more than 70 years Average life expectancy of 50 years

Most people have enough to eat 1/5 or more suffer from hunger and malnutrition

Most people are educated 1/2 of the people have little chance of any education

Over 90% of the world's manufacturing industry less than 10% of the world's manufacturing industry

About 96% of the world's spending on research and

4% of the world's research and development
development
Beauty pageants are beloved feature of Filipino pop
culture, with Philippine participation in
international beauty competitions dating back to at
least 1952, when Teresita Sanchez participated in
Miss Universe. Since then, the country has
garnered four victories in the Miss Universe
competition and a total eleven victories in three
other prominent international beauty pageants:
Miss World, Miss International and Miss Earth.
A glance at the country’s beauty pageant
winners, however, reveals that many of them
are mestiza, or of mixed raced. Why do you
think that women and men of mixed race are
frequently perceived as beautiful? What other
qualities do we associate with people of fair
and/or mixed heritage and why?
 A NEW CONCEPTION ON
GLOBAL RELATIONS: THE
GLOBAL SOUTH,
DEPENDENCY THEORY,
AND
MODERNITY/COLONIALIT
Y
◦ World system analysis, spearheaded by American intellectual
Immanuel Wallerstein, developed and refined dependency
theory. World system analysis shifts the focus of analysis from
individual countries to the whole world as one economic
system, and analyzes the origin of this system. It also adds the
concept of semi-periphery countries, which occupy an
intermediate position. Wallerstein further argued that one
cannot simply say that core states exploit periphery states, but
rather, that core capitalists exploit workers anywhere in the
world.
These are three areas of the world:
◦ Core Areas – A small set of technologically advanced and industrialized capitalist
nations/regions characterized by higher incomes, large tax bases, and high standards of
living. In the 21st century, the developed countries that form the G-7 group, along with
China can be considered the core of the world-system.
◦ Periphery Areas – Poor countries that primarily subsist by exporting primary products
such as agricultural produce and natural resources to the core countries. The periphery is
characterized by a small tax base, low incomes, and low levels of human development
index. In the 21st century, much of sub-Saharan African, parts of Latin America and
Central Asia can be considered the periphery.
◦ Semi-Periphery Areas – These countries act as the periphery to core countries, and as a
core to the countries on the periphery. Typically, such countries are regional powers with
moderate levels of development indices and growing capitalist economies. In the 21st
century, countries such as India, Brazil, Turkey, Mexico, Israel, Nigeria etc. can be
considered the semi-periphery of the world-system.
THE GLOBAL SOUTH:
EMERGENCE,
HISTORY, AND
POSSIBILITIES
‘Global South’ is a blanket directional term without
content in and of itself. It refers to a part of the globe that
is in the south as opposed to the north. It defines itself in
a circle. The origin of the term is a matter of debate, like
many other concepts we use in our lives. But scholars
have pointed out that the term Global South popularized
in the context of international economic development in
the late 20th century.
Specifically, the term Global South was deployed
as the destination of financial aid and development
plans that flowed from the ‘resource rich’ countries
of the Global North. It referred to low-and middle
income countries located in Asia, Africa, Latin
America, the Caribbean and the Pacific Islands.
International financial institutions like the
World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund subsequently adopted the
term Global South to refer to the ‘poorer
countries’ that needed to be financially
saved.
Despite the supposedly good
intentions of these international
institutions, they ‘assisted’ these
‘poorer countries’ in the Global South
by forcing them into debt crises.
2 Major Causes:
1. The condition of financial loan from the
international financial institutions was unfair to
the debtor.
2. The forced opening up of the national market,
as a consequence of the loan contract, led to an
excessive plundering and dispossessing of local
resources by multinational inverstors.
The Global South, developing countries, and the third
world. These three terms name an entity that shares some
common attributes: historical experiences with
colonialism and neocolonialism; an ongoing reality of
political, economic, and social marginalization; and in
some cases, memories of struggles for global justice
against (neo)colonialism and realities of marginalization.
Underdevelopment is a strong reminder of
overexploitation, resource extraction, mass
expulsion and racialized violence that can
be dated back to the earliest time of both
settler and overseas colonial conquest.
The field of the Global South is both transnational
and decentralized. It is unconstrained by national
boundaries. The South in the United States, which
mostly refers to Black working class and Latinx
immigrants, is therefore the major locus of
resistance within the Global South framework.
CONCEPTS
DEPENDECY
THEORY
The central arguments are:
a. Countries do not develop economically at
isolated units, but are linked in a global
capitalist system
b. This capitalist world system is unequal as
resources are shifted from periphery (margins)
to the core (center)
Dependency Theory is a critique of
modernization theory which claims that
there is only one way for all countries to
achieve economic growth, and
underdevelopment is caused by factors
inside the country.
 CORE
SU
OL RP
R LU
NT CO SV
E
CO L U NT AL
VA RO UE

CONTROL
US L

SURPLUS
PL

VALUE
R
SU

PERIPHER PERIPHER
Y Y
PERIPHER
Y
Dependency theorists use the term ‘core’ and
‘periphery’ to describe power positions in this
global economy. ‘Core’ countries are
economically powerful and dominate other
countries, whereas ‘periphery’ countries lack
economic power and are being dominated.
Dependency theory also argues that the relationship between
core and periphery is unequal and exploitative- the money
produced that is not immediately needed to sustain workers
or production (the ‘surplus value’) is shifted from the
periphery to the core. Peripheral countries are often
dependent on import and export, and their weal bargaining
power means that they have to import at expensive prices
and export at cheap prices, engaging in a form of ‘unequal
exchange’.
MODERNITY/
COLONIATLIT
Y
Modernity/Coloniality is a Latin
American school of thought that
argues that colonial forms of
domination are ongoing even after
‘political decolonization.
For Gorfoguel,
◦Coloniality means the persistence of ‘colonial
situations’. He defines this term as “cultural,
political, and economic oppression of subordinate
racialized/ethnic groups by dominant racial/ethnic
groups with or without the existence of colonial
administrations”.
Enrique Dussel is considered the founding father of the
modernity/coloniality school. Dussel was among the first
who pointed out the Eurocentric, racist, and colonial
assumptions of European Philosophy’s literature on
modernity. He argues that ‘modern’ European civilization
interprets itself as the most developed civilization. Being
the ‘superior’ civilization is then seen to carry an
obligation to ‘civilize’ other peoples, who are viewed as
‘guilty’ of ‘immaturity’.
Coloniality of power refers to an
interconnected system of global power
relations and hierarchies, connecting the
global division of labor to the global
racial/ethnic hierarchy. Eurocentric
knowledge production, and other forms of
power relations.
The term ‘coloniality of power’ was coined by
Anibal Quijano. Quijano points out that the
globe is structured by power relations,
centered around global capitalism. Global
capitalism and the power relations entangled
with it were created by European imperialist
expansion.
European colonialism also created the idea of ‘race’
and globally imposed a racial hierarchy. Certain
forms of labor were assigned to certain racialized
groups. For example, slavery was associated with
Negroes/Blacks and wage labor was associated
with Spanish/Whites. This racial hierarchy was
created to control labor in order to produce goods
for the world market.
The Coloniality of Knowledge literature
maintains that ‘colonial difference’ or the
‘colonial axis’ is also found in experiences and
knowledges. We always know and speak from
a certain position in global hierarchies, either a
position of dominance, or a position of
subordination.
This literature provides correctives to three major
problems of Eurocentric knowledge production.
1. Westerners let their knowledge dominate the globe.
2. Western knowledge producers misrepresent
Eurocentric and self-serving knowledge as neutral
and universal knowledge.
3. They silence and erase knowledge from dominated
or Non-European positions.
The Modernity/Coloniality lens halps us
comprehend the globe not just as
interconnected, but structured by unequal
power relations. It enables us to understand the
way power relations shift living standard and
quality of life from the dominated positions to
the dominant positions.