Patel, Kamna; (2024) Global North and Global South. In: Dauncey, Emil and Desai, Vandana and Potter, Robert, (eds.) The Companion to Development Studies. Routledge: Abingdon, UK.

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Abstract

In contemporary development studies the terms ‘Global North’ and ‘Global South’, sometimes capitalised and sometimes not, roll off the tongue as a familiar, known and knowable concept that translates easily across development audiences. I refer to ‘Global North’ and ‘Global South’ as a singular concept because one does not make any sense without the other. Its meaning is derived entirely from being a pair where one part serves as an imaginary counterfoil to the other. As a heuristic device, the usage and utility of Global North/South intends to conjure particular imaginations of difference. Within development studies, a field of scholarship that rests on differences between places and people, I argue the main usage of Global North/South is part of a longer history of racialised sense-making that follows a colonial imprint, and its utility is derived from development scholars and practitioners readily discovering, learning and locating subjects of development.

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