GLOBAL SOUTH

1. Context

India assumed the presidency of the G20 group of countries for 2022 to 2023 External affairs minister said that the country would be the voice of the Global South. That is otherwise underrepresented in such forums. The term Global South since been used multiple times

2. Classification of the countries-

Global North

It refers loosely to countries like the US, Canada, Russia, and Australia.

Global South

 While the “Global South “includes countries in Asia, Africa, and South America.

Western world

West stands for countries with greater levels of economic development and prosperity.

First world

The bloc of democratic-industrialized countries within the American sphere of influence, the "First World," also known as The West.

Second world

The Eastern bloc of the communist-socialist states, where the political and economic power should come from the up-to-now oppressed peasants and workers.

Third world

The remaining three-quarters of the world population, countries that did not belong to either bloc, were considered "Third World."

• However, with the disintegration of the USSR in 1991, the First World, Third world classification was no longer accurate. The East, West binary was considered too broad, lumping together diverse countries.
• Global North and Global South apart are that they are arguably more accurate in grouping measuring similarly in terms of wealth, indicators of education, healthcare, etc.
• South countries are that most have a history of colonization, largely at the hands of European powers.
• Global south also refers to the regions historically excluded from prominent international organizations, such as from permanent membership of the United Nations

3. Defining Global South

• The Global South as a critical concept has three primary definitions. First, it has traditionally been used within intergovernmental development organizations –– primarily those that originated in the Non-Aligned Movement­ ­–– to refer to economically disadvantaged nation-states and as a post-cold war alternative to "Third World." However, in recent years and within a variety of fields, the Global South is employed in a post-national sense to address spaces and people negatively impacted by contemporary capitalist globalization.
• In this second definition, the Global South captures a deterritorialized geography of capitalism's externalities and means to account for subjugated peoples within the borders of wealthier countries, such that there are economic Souths in the geographic North and Norths in the geographic South. While this usage relies on a long tradition of analysis of the North's geographic Souths­ ­–– wherein the South represents an internal periphery and subaltern relational position –– the epithet “global” is used to unhinge the South from a one-to-one relation to geography.
• It is through this deterritorial conceptualization that a third meaning is attributed to the Global South which refers to the resistant imaginary of a transnational political subject that results from a shared experience of subjugation under contemporary global capitalism.

4. Criticism, Concerns

• There is also the question of whether the South, when acting as a group, simply aims to replace the North and the positions it occupies, continuing a cycle in which a few countries accumulate crucial resources.
• Also in the rise of Asia in terms of economic growth and global importance, the continued neglect of Africa, part of the “south” has been questioned.

For Mains

Source: The Hindu