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The ‘Global South’ is a terrible term. Don’t use it!

Last updated on November 11, 2018

The Rise of the ‘Global South’

The ‘Global South‘ and ‘Global North‘ are increasingly popular terms used to categorize the countries of the world. According to Wikipedia, the term ‘Global South’ originated in postcolonial studies, and was first used in 1969. The Google N-gram chart below shows the rise of the ‘Global South’ term from 1980 till 2008, but the rise is even more impressive afterwards.

Nowadays, the Global South is used as a shortcut to anything from poor and less-developed to oppressed and powerless. Despite this vagueness, the term is prominent in serious academic publications, and it even features in the names of otherwise reputable institutions. But, its popularity notwithstanding, the ‘Global South’ is a terrible term. Here is why.

 

There is no Global South

The Global South/Global North terms are inaccurate and misleading. First, they are descriptively inaccurate, even when they refer to general notions such as (economic) development. Second, they are homogenizing, obscuring important differences between countries supposedly part of the Global South and North groups. In this respect, these terms are no better than alternatives that they are trying to replace, such as ‘the West‘ or the ‘Third World‘. Third, the Global South/Global North terms imply a geographic determinism that is wrong and demotivational. Poor countries are not doomed to be poor, because they happen to be in the South, and their geographic position is not a verdict on their developmental prospects.

 

The Global South/Global North terms are inaccurate and misleading

Let me show you just how bad these terms are. I focus on human development, broadly defined and measured by the United Nations’ Human Development Index (HDI). The HDI tracks life expectancy, education, and standard of living, so it captures more than purely economic aspects of development.

The chart below plots the geographic latitude of a country’ capital against the country’s HDI score for 2017. (Click on the image for a larger size or download a higher resolution pdf). It is quite clear that a straight line from South to North is a poor description of the relationship between geographic latitude and human development. The correlation between the two is 0.48. A linear regression of HDI on latitude returns a positive coefficient, and the R-squared as 0.23. But, as is obvious from the plot, the relationship is not linear. In fact, some of the southern-most countries on the planet, such as Australia and New Zealand, but also Chile and Argentina, are in the top ranks of human development. The best summary of the relationship between HDI and latitude is curvilinear, as indicated by the Loess (nonparametric local regression) fit.

 

 

 

You can say that we always knew that and the Global South was meant to refer to ‘distance from the equator’ rather than to absolute latitude. But, first, this is rather offensive to people in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and the southern part of South America. And, second, there is still far from a deterministic relationship between human development and geographic position, as measured by distance from the equator. The next plot (click on the image for a larger size, download a pdf version here) shows exactly that. Now, overall, the relationship is stronger: the correlation is 0.64. And after around the 10th degree, it is also rather linear, as indicated by the match between the linear regression line and the Loess fit. Still, there is important heterogeneity within the South/close to equator and North/far from equator countries. Singapore’ HDI is almost as high as that of Sweden, despite the two being on the opposite ends of the geographic scale. Ecuador’s HDI is just above Ukraine’s, although the former is more than 50 degree closer to the equator than then latter. Gabon’s HDI is higher than Moldova’s, despite Gabon being 46 degrees further south than Moldova.

 

 

This is not to deny that there is a link between geographic position and human development. By the standards of social science, this is a rather strong correlation and fairly smooth relationship. It is remarkable that no country more the 35 degrees from the equator has an HDI lower than 0.65 (but this excludes North Korea, for which there is no HDI data provided by the UN).  But there is still important diversity in human development at different geographic zones. Moreover, the correlation between geographic position and development need to be causal, let alone deterministic.

There are good arguments to be made that geography shapes and constraints the economic and social development of nations. My personal favorite is Jared Diamond’s idea that Eurasia’s continental spread along an East-West axis made it easier for food innovations and agricultural technology to diffuse, compared to America’s continental spread along a North-South axis. But geography is not a verdict for development, as plenty of nations have demonstrated. Yet, the Global South/Global North categories suggest otherwise.

 

What to use instead?

OK, so the Global South/Global North are bad words, but what to use instead? There is no obvious substitute that is more descriptively accurate, less homogenizing and less suggestive of (geographic) determinism. But then don’t use any categorization that is so general and coarse. There is a good reason why there is no appropriate alternative term: the countries of the world are too diverse to fit into two boxes: one for South and one for North, one for developed and one for non-developed, one for powerful, and one for oppressed.

Be specific about what the term is referring to, and be concrete about the set of countries that is covered. If you mean the 20 poorest countries in the world, say the 20 poor countries in the world, not countries of the Global South. If you mean technologically underdeveloped countries, say that and not countries of the Third World. If you mean rich, former colonial powers from Western Europe, say that and not the Global North.  It takes a few more words, but it is more accurate and less misleading.

It is a bit ironic that the Global South/Global North terms are most popular among scholars and activists who are extremely sensitive about the power of words to shape public discourses, homogenize diverse populations, and support narratives that take a life of their own, influencing politics and public policy. If that’s the case, it makes it even more imperative to avoid terms that are inaccurate, homogenizing and misleading on a global scale.

If you want to look at the data yourself, the R script for the figures is here and the datafile is here.

Published inClassificationDevelopment

27 Comments

  1. Clifton W.

    It’s a metaphor. Nobody believed the Iron Curtain was either a curtain or made of iron. Let alone that this would have been a case of home-decorative determinism.

    • demetriodor demetriodor

      Metaphors are not neutral. They suggest associations, evoke emotions and help produce meaning. The ‘Iron Curtain’ suggested an impenetrable barrier between Eastern and Western Europe, and the expression evokes the closing of the curtain on the world stage.

    • Mat

      It’s a terrible metaphor, for all the reasons the author has pointed out. Hopefully will be out of favour soon, I’m amazed it ever took hold.

  2. Liron

    I am amazed to see you refer to the ‘developing’ countries throughout this article when its use is as problematic, if not more, than global South and North. The former is patronising and implies infancy (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09614524.2013.752792?src=recsys&journalCode=cdip20). Meanwhile, at least the South/North concept is rooted in resistance to the kinds of patronising ‘developmentalist’ language you favour (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1536504212436479).

    • Anonymous

      This is exactly the reply I wanted to make. All of these terms have their issues, and that has a lot to do with the nature of what we’re trying to describe. I imagine it’s easy to problematize the concept of ‘poorest countries’ as inherently colonial and Western, given the flow of resources from these ‘poor’ countries to ‘richer’ ones.

  3. Laya

    Sending this to my professor, right now!

  4. Anonymous

    The terms are GLOBAL North and South, which shows that we’re not talking about a strictly geographical divide. The facts you claim here are not based on a thorough understanding. The text is also not very academic for a professor?
    Anyway, the terms are not ideal but it is important to find terms that are as “politically correct” as possible because “the 20 poorest countries” won’t suffice.

  5. Bjorn

    Nice public outreach – using exactly the right, understandable language – and making a very clear arguments against the use of the terms global north and south (I’m myself guilty of using such vocabulary, and have sought for better alternatives). Thank you for the article.

  6. Marcelo Rodriguez

    This article is an attempt to silence any possibility to strive for inspiring terms. Another reason we should let people define themselves and not from the armchair comfort of an ivory tower in the Netherlands. The author claims that the Global South is “demotivational”. How does “the 20 poorest countries in the world” would make you feel? The point is not to find the most geographically or historically accurate term (and accurate to whom?). The point is to let people who have been historically disenfranchised, and continues to this day, find their own words while inspiring them to create their own narratives. Global South is never going to be perfect. It doesn’t attempt to be. That doesn’t mean it needs to be discarded completely. Let’s strive to engage in a more constructive and empowering conversation coming from the voices that actually need to be heard.

    • Anonymous

      Your argument does not negate what the author said. Also, there was no attempt to silence anyone nor thwart the “possibility to strive for inspiring terms.” If we should go by what you said about “letting people define themselves,” then you do not have any right to refer to someone as “the armchair comfort of an ivory tower in the Netherlands.” The author raised an issue and rightly supported his claims with evidence from existing research and literature. If you disagree, you should have refuted these claims with a counter argument and of course, support it with evidence. The “Global South”–or whatever that means– does not need you to defend it or explain its attempt to not be perfect. The issue raised is about a problematic term. How about you rather be constructive and stick to the argument.

      • Anonymous

        The author literally implores us not to use the term, and you say there is no attempt to silence anyone? Who is this author to tell everyone who uses the term not to use it? From what position? What if a historically marginalized person identifies with and makes use of the term? Who is this ostensibly European blogger to proclaim this from the same academic position he criticizes?

  7. Anonymous

    “If you want to look at the data yourself, the R script for the figures is here and the datafile is here,” says the scholar from the Global North.

    • Anonymous

      A finely crafted example of an ad hominem argument

  8. Sergio Torres Corrales

    The terms and ideas in the following list, as presented in the article, are terrible, don’t use them.
    They were created by people in the Global North to ideologically support the oppression of the Global South.
    😉
    LIST
    less-developed
    economic development
    developmental prospects
    the United Nations’ Human Development Index (HDI)
    life expectancy, education, and standard of living as aspects of development
    Expecting a linear relationship for social phenomena
    human development
    economic and social development of nations
    developed and non-developed
    technologically underdeveloped

  9. Anonymous

    I think south-north conceptualisation is a typical word washing. Using the term coloniser countries and colonised countries would be correct, in my opinion. However, given the conceptualisation of such mostly coming from the coloniser countries, it makes them feel better to use more vague terms such as south or north, second or third.

    • Anonymous

      Is Turkey a coloniser country or colonised? Ukraine? Ireland? South Korea?

      • Anonymous

        They have no idea. They just want the answer to this linguistic problem to be simple.

  10. Nahum Hernandez

    That’s why academy in the core countries does not show any respect for what we develop in the peripherial countries to understand the gap between rich and poor nations.

    Global North and South are epistemic concepts, dear Professor, not something imagined from the argumental simplicity that you try to argue in this blog.

    Please be kind and read the book “Epistemologies from the South” by Boaventura do Souza Santos, and search the paper named “Differentiation Theory and the Global South as a Metageography of International Relations” written by Jochen Kleinschmidt.

    I can’t believe that there are still rolling colonial arguments like “DO NOT READ THIS”.

  11. Anonymous

    I’m in full agreement with the problemtisatoin of ‘global north/south’. I came here looking for alternatives and yes, be specific – but one example you offer is ‘technologically underdeveloped’ – this is more normatively loaded than ‘global south’!

  12. Anonymous

    To me, Global North and Global South are the most equal and dignifying terms to use, I will not refer to countries of the Global South as the “poor” and “underdeveloped” countries. It is very demeaning, these countries are much more than the value a capitalist western system is giving to them or the level to which they are assimilated to a westernized idea of development.

  13. Tom

    Great article. I especially like your conclusion that we should avoid homogenizing dichotomies in general.
    However, I find this statement troubling: “But, first, this is rather offensive to people in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and the southern part of South America.”

    Troubling in the sense that it implies that people in technologically developed/industrialized/relatively wealthy countries in the global South should/would be offended for being lumped into the same category as pauperized, “developing” countries. I fail to see how being included in a miscategorization like that would be offensive.

    That and other hints in your tone reveal a “rather offensive” bias against pauperized, post-colonized countries.

  14. Peter Coogan

    This discussion is fascinating. The OP raises a great issue and I pretty much agreed with him as I read, but then I had some issues, and then those issues got raised in the comments, and then I agreed with each commenter as I read. The discussion here is profound. I have never seen this kind of commentary in a comment section (admittedly I don’t read blogs much). I don’t know what my position is now.

    I came across this problem in an article I was editing on “left-behind children.” The authors noted that it was a problematic term and that scholars should stop using it, but then they kept using it. So I came up with the “children of work-away parents,” which shifted the onus from the children to the parents and shifted the term from identity, which stuck with the children throughout their life (comparable to latch-key children of Gen X) to a temporary status (when the parents return, the children are no longer children of work-away parents).

    Demetriodor has the same problem. He raises an important point but does not provide a solution. In this case, there is no easy solution, so raising the question serves an excellent purpose. The range of responses in the comments shows how difficult these terms are. All terms seem to have problems, even colonizer and colonized are problematic (the US emerged from colonies but as the US was never colonized, except that territory it controlled was colonized (Indigenous lands).

    I don’t have any solutions to offer at all. I think this is a fascinating discussion.

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740920304977

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