Locating the Global South Study Notes

Globalization is visible in the everyday cultural homogenization of environments like Starbucks, found in cities ranging from Melbourne and New York to Manila and New Delhi.
The "shanty" represents the underside of globalization, characterized by poor sanitation, informal employment, and child labor in "weak states."
Poverty in the global south is not a symptom of being "un-globalized" but is produced by global mechanisms of neo-liberalism and forced liberalization.

International Financial Institutions (IFIs) like the World Bank (WB), IMF, and WTO impose economic "cures" (austerity and high interest rates) on developing nations that the developed world does not apply to itself.
During the $2008$ credit crunch, the US Federal Reserve cut interest rates and initiated a $US\$150 \text{ billion}$ stimulus, a sharp contrast to the belt-tightening forced upon Asia and Latin America in the $1990\text{s}$ .
Structural adjustment often deepens inequality, proving that poverty itself is being globalized.

Despite the deterritorializing effects of globalization, the state remains the primary mechanism for social redistribution and environmental regulation.
Resistance to global trading regimes is often organized at the state level, such as the Group of $33$ in the WTO.
Transnational flows, such as those of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), are frequently prefigured by specific state policies, such as those of the Marcos or Suharto regimes.

The global south is partly a product of Western imagination, rooted in the Spanish conquest and Hegelian views of European civilization as the apotheosis of history.
Colonial logic persists through theories like Modernization theory (Walt W. Rostow), the "Clash of Civilizations" (Samuel Huntington), and the "End of History" (Francis Fukuyama).
Thomas Friedman uses the metaphor of the Lexus to represent the drive for global modernity versus the "olive tree" of local traditions.

The Asia-African Conference held in Bandung in $1955$ was the founding moment for the non-aligned movement, involving $29$ countries.
Key participants included Sukarno, Zhou Enlai, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Jawaharlal Nehru.
Sukarno warned that colonialism persists in "modern dress," including economic and intellectual control.
Colonialism was challenged early on through socialist internationalism, specifically Lenin and the Communist International (Comintern), which linked capitalism to imperialism.

Questioning the Relevance of the Third World: Critics like Berger argue that Third Worldism is "intellectually and conceptually bankrupt" because it relies on territorial state politics. Claudio responds that abandoning the state ignores concrete struggles for food security and autonomy in the global south.
Objections to State-Centric Analysis: Scholars like Jonathan Rigg and Bayat emphasize "non-movements" and the "quiet encroachment of the ordinary" that operate outside statecraft. Raewyn Connell notes that entities like aboriginal Australia exist within the global south imaginary despite being part of wealthy states.
Globalization of Southern Concerns: The Greek crisis in $2012$ , featuring $40\,\%$ budget cuts and high addiction rates despite a $€5.9 \text{ billion}$ EU/IMF package, shows the global north sharing struggles traditionally associated with the south.
Environmental Justice: Movements in the global south, such as Evo Morales’s government in Bolivia, lead the rethinking of environmentalism through the "rights of mother earth."