[lbo-talk] language query

[Sean Andrews]

I don't know what the best answer to the question is, but I will say
that the thing I like about concepts like "global south" or "global
third world" (just as I like the concept of "global north" or "global
first world" is that it breaks down the geographic understanding most
USers have of the world and point to the fact that, as development
sociologist Ankie Hoogvelt puts it, there is plenty of first world
enclaves in the third world and plenty of third world enclaves in the
first.

I'm sure there are plenty of political reasons to use other terms,
but, the genius of considering it in terms of a complex logic problem
aside, there are also important reasons to make some distinctions
between the people who have all the good shit and the people, as Mike
Davis points out in Planet of Slums, who live in shit.  And since many
of these distinctions need to be clarified more for the former (who,
like some of my students, seem to actually believe that there is logic
and justice to the argument of "the world is flat") than the latter
there seems to be much at stake in making them stick.   In part, it
makes it more obvious that the ideological commonplaces of the "global
north" are not innocent, natural objective realities but, for lack of
a better term, a class biased understanding of the world.

On the other hand, I would be very interested in hearing other answers
to Liza's question.  Regardless of all I've just said, I often find
myself at a loss when I get to the point in a sentance where I am
supposed to refer to this object.  Perhaps this has more to do with my
own ethnocentric organization of the world (placing my objectified
subjects in some sort of double bind) than I'm usually willing to
admit.  But I do mean well, for what it's worth.

s

On 2/5/07, Liza Featherstone <lfeather at panix.com> wrote:
> I wonder what LBO-sters -- especially those living in non-Western
> countries, but everyone should feel free to weigh in -- think of the
> expression "the global South." I really try hard to stay away from
> expressions that convey speakers are members of some special,
> exclusive, righteous club, so I don't like it. I have used it on a
> few occasions, out of a sense that "developing world" was too
> optimistic and imperialist -- though it's very accepted in policy
> wonk circles, probably for exactly this reason -- and "Third World"
> vaguely problematic. But I'm resistant. Thoughts? Apologies in
> advance for the naivete and likely provincialism of the question.
>
> Liza
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