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X-Posted from H-Net List on South & Southern Africa <H-SAFRICA@H-NET.MSU.EDU> From: Jeremy Martens <jeremy.martens@UWA.EDU.AU> _________ Date: 26 August 2010 From: Christopher Lee <cjlee1@email.unc.edu> With due respect to the contributors so far, I think a key point is missing among the interesting comments that have been made: expressions like "Third World" or "the global South" or "the majority world" were not invented for their geographic, political, or economic precision, but to capture a set of political sentiments positioned against the West (i.e. Europe and the US). In short, these terms are better understood as referring to a collective political agenda, a political imagination, and/or a political project rather than a place or geography as such. The term "Third World" is a Cold War expression originating from 1953, as Vijay Prashad and others have addressed. It was embraced by the Non-Aligned Movement and signaled a tricontinental (Africa, Asia, Latin America) political agenda that in principle sought to work against forms of Western neo-colonialism (the history itself, of course, is far more complicated). The expressions "global South" and "the majority world" have been invented since the end of the Cold War to capture a world beyond the West, primarily in intellectual and economic realms (albeit not without political implications). These terms are equally imprecise, insofar that many countries considered to be part of the global South are actually north of the equator; meanwhile, the "majority world" suggests consensus and uniformity when there is often very little. However, they serve as short-hand for identifying certain power imbalances of knowledge and capital, respectively. To answer the initial query, I think the contemporary use of "Third World" (i.e. to attach it to the name of a new organization as proposed) is antiquated. But I think the quick dismissal of this term by scholars overlooks a complex history that continues to hold much relevance in how we understand the contemporary politics of Africa, Asia, and Latin America today. The pejorative qualities of "Third World" are understandable given the corruption, human rights abuses, and economic decline of many postcolonial nation-states during the Cold War and after. But to reproduce this negative view and swiftly disregard the term out of hand misses, I think, the evolution and uses of this expression that relates to the global history of anti-colonial nationalism, decolonization, and the challenges of postcolonial sovereignty during the Cold War era.
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