Global South Human Geography Notes

Nation State

  • A political unit where a state and a nation are congruent.
  • Defined territory, shared history/culture.

Colonialism & Imperialism

  • Imperialism: Maintaining/extending power over foreign nations via expansionism, using both hard and soft power.

Neo-liberalism

  • Market-oriented reforms: eliminating price controls, deregulating capital, lowering trade barriers.
  • Reducing state influence via privatization and austerity.

Global South Definition

  • Populations that have been targets of global development, dispossession, colonization, and slavery.
  • Postcolonial and subaltern populations.

Critique of Global North/South

  • Imprecise: Geographical descriptors, population movement, exclusion practices.
  • Useful: Provides viewpoints and voice.

Global South - Historical Context

  • Prior to European invasion: Sophisticated economies/societies.
  • Looted, oppressed, destabilized, setting them back.
  • Global North's economic development relies on expropriation from the Global South.
  • Independence achieved, but ties to former empires remain.

Exceptions: Settler Colonies

  • Indigenous independence not achieved; settler colonization ongoing.
  • Ongoing coloniality through imposed structures.
  • Impacts culture, labor, knowledge, upholding Western power.

Coloniality & Development

  • Underpinned global development processes.
  • Shift to modernization.
  • Export of Western/European progress aspects.
  • Increasing ‘South-South’ cooperation to counter this.

Development as Economic Growth

  • IMF and World Bank influence Global South governments.
  • Designed to govern international economic order.
  • Support economic development benefiting the West.
  • Policies for aid: privatization, trade liberalization, destabilizing local economies.

Moving Beyond Western Influence

  • Economic development of China, Brazil, India involved in development initiatives.
  • Alternative funding sources without interference.

Inequality and Economic Insecurity

  • Western hegemony challenged, economic development continues.
  • Capitalism seeks profits, leading to cheaper production in Global South.

Global Resource Use

  • USA=5.0USA = 5.0 Earths, China=2.1China = 2.1 Earths, World=1.7World = 1.7 Earths and India=0.6India = 0.6 Earths, if the world's population lived like the respective countries based on resource consumption.