The Global South and World Dis/Order

The "Global South" is a fashionable expression. It appears in academic journals, in the title of university academic centers, among activists around the world. I argue that from the perspective of capitalism and expansion of Western values, the "Global South" is the location to be developed economically and liberated from non-democratic regimes. From the perspective of the emerging political society, the "Global South" is where liberation from Western democratic rhetoric to justify economic takeover and cultural management is taking place. I show how the very concept of "Global South" came about, replacing that of the "Third World" after the collapse of the Soviet Union. I end the article by mapping five trajectories, discernible in the present, that are orienting global futures and I further argue that they cannot be understood properly without understanding the economic, political, and epistemic conflict that make the "Global South" a current location of global conflicts.