Emotional Interdependence: Reconceptualizing Mutual Dependence from Global North to Global South

Turning from Global North perspectives to those from the Global South, this article introduces contrasting approaches to emotional interdependence in international relations, considering how it may operate in a world order beyond Western dominance. After critiquing the artificial tension between reason and emotion in dominant “rationalist” approaches to interdependence, the article unpacks two sets of previously overlooked perspectives on emotional interdependence. First, it turns to paths not taken forward in the history of international thought in the Global North to indicate their elaboration of conceptualizations of emotional interdependence that extend beyond singular expressions of sympathy and empathy given the role of reciprocity, continuity, and extension to humanity. With reference to their application to contemporary experience, the analysis highlights the limitations of approaches rooted in Western constructions of humanity and universality, and subsequently turns to perspectives from the Global South to delineate the contours of pluriversal approaches to emotional interdependence. Rooted in concepts including Buen Vivir and Ubuntu, pluriversal emotional interdependence involves horizontal reciprocity, coexistence of multiple emotional worlds, and inseparability of humans from nature. The case of South Africa’s “diplomacy of Ubuntu” is used to illustrate pluriversal emotional interdependence in diplomatic practice and its roles in mediating between worlds.