The term “Global South” is doing a lot of heavy lifting for a geographically illiterate phrase. Australia is in the Global South. So is New Zealand. Both are fabulously wealthy, stable democracies with excellent dental care.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan is in the Global North.
The “Global South” term was invented by diplomats who needed something that sounded neutral but meant “the countries that got colonized and are still annoyed about it,” which is fair, but the compass metaphor fell apart immediately upon contact with a map.
“Developing countries” is perhaps the most optimistic euphemism in the history of language. It implies that Sudan is in some kind of chrysalis phase, about to emerge as a butterfly of prosperity any day now — any decade now — just give it time. Sudan has been “developing” since the term was coined. At some point, you have to admit the butterfly is not coming.
“Developed countries” have other problems. It implies completion. South Korea is developed. South Korea is finished. South Korea has arrived. South Korea shouldn’t be considered a “developed” country because it’s still developing . . . at a ferocious pace.
“Third World” is Cold War archaeology. It was coined in 1952 by French demographer Alfred Sauvy to describe countries aligned with neither NATO nor the Soviet bloc — the First and Second Worlds, respectively. The First World was the US alliance. The Second World was the communist bloc. The Third World was everyone else, which included India, Yugoslavia, and Egypt — all countries with ancient civilizations that found it slightly condescending to be ranked third.
Then the Soviet Union dissolved, the Second World vanished, and suddenly we had a ranking system with a missing middle tier. Nobody uses “Second World” anymore, so “Third World” just floats there, meaning “poor” by inertia and insult.
The best alternative is probably the most boring one: low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries, as classified by the World Bank using GDP per capita thresholds. It is not poetic. Nobody is writing a political manifesto that opens with “the struggle of low-income countries.”
But it is at least accurate, updatable, and it doesn’t imply that geography determines destiny or that anyone is finished developing. South Korea can graduate. Sudan’s situation can be described honestly. Australia doesn’t have to share a category with Mozambique because they’re both south of the equator.
The runner-up is “majority world,” which at least has the virtue of pointing out that the so-called periphery contains most of the humans. It flips the frame.
The Global North, with its confident assumption that it is the default, contains a minority of the world’s population, making the rules for everyone else. “Majority world” is a quiet little power move that geographers occasionally use and that never quite caught on because it makes wealthy nations slightly uncomfortable, which is probably the most honest thing that can be said for it.
What do you think?
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