Conversations
The Lab’s conversations are a vibrant space for encounters and engagements that aim to unearth knowledge and contemporary praxes. They unite historical knowledge and present sociopolitical developments from the viewpoint of the Global South's social movements, actors, and institutions to incubate collaboration and imagine the future of worldmaking.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the Global South?
-
The term "Global South" means more than a geographic location; it is a global project for the radical imagination of worldmaking. It is increasingly used to represent the collective aspirations and political agency of nations referred to as “developing countries” and their diasporic communities worldwide. In these discussions and negotiations within international governance systems — economic, legal, financial, and political — global rules are being established. In these systems, the rules are often applied to poorer nations and biased in favor of affluent global actors, both state and non-state, over the last eight decades. In the post-World War II era, dominant actors from the Global North established and controlled this system. At the same time, most countries in the Global South were colonized, semi-colonized, or began to gain independence. Most of these countries were left out when the international rules were created, and marginalized and excluded as they were maintained. The countries of the Global South are primarily located in Africa, Asia (excluding Japan), Latin America and the Caribbean, and Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand). The Global South collectively represents more than 85% of the world’s population, with rich histories, unmatched social and natural diversity, varying degrees of economic and human development, and different governance systems.
- What significant developments have shaped the collective voice of the Global South?
-
During the last 100 years, significant events have shaped the development of the Global South/Third World Project collective voice; these are among the most notable:
- 1928, Brussels, Belgium: The League Against Imperialism, a gathering of anticolonial leaders, 174 delegates representing 31 states, colonies, or regions, and 134 organizations came together for a conference on anti-imperialism, colonialism, and oppression.
- 1955, Bandung, Indonesia: The Asia-Africa Conference, a gathering of 29 newly or almost independent Asian and African countries, adopted a planetary agenda on international relations, economic development, and national sovereignty, among others. Additionally, it revived the Third World Project. It led to the birth of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) for countries beyond the two superpowers of the time—the United States and the Soviet Union.
- In 1961, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was created as a block within the UN’s General Assembly to articulate a unified voice of the Global South on global discussions and negotiations. Today, NAM has 120 member states with diverse political and social systems that are equally weighted.
- 2009, BRICS: A block of significant economies and countries of the Global South, founded in 2009 by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, affirming their commitment to a multipolar world and global non-interventionism and called for a new global reserve currency beyond the US Dollar. As of January 2025, an additional five countries, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates, have joined the block.
- Why is now the right time for the Global South Lab?
-
While significant progress has been made globally over the past several years in articulating and pursuing the aspirations for equality and equity practices in international relations, the rates of social and political othering and humanitarian and environmental crises are rapidly increasing, casting a grim shadow and disastrous outcomes on our planet and humanity. Many Global South thinkers, public intellectuals, policymakers, and activists called for imagining a different world future outside the current dominant political and ontological practices and thoughts of the Global North. They argue that such modality exists within and throughout the Global South’s historical and contemporary diverse cosmopolity and imagination of worldmaking. Therefore, the GSL considers the overarching visions to imagine and co-exist in the world. Hence, the Global South's imagination of worldmaking that continues to emerge over the last 100 years, from the 1920s’ Third World Project to the 1955 Bandung Conference, the 1961 Non-Aligned Movement, and the 2009–the emerging of the BRICS block, for a multipolar world. This journey underscores the urgent need to create global platforms where global citizens can learn from each other, contribute, and co-create an inclusive future where all belong.
- How does the Global South Lab explore the co-creation of worldmaking?
-
By now, we know that no government or entity can effectively do the work of worldmaking alone, but people can. Thus, we want to spark global citizens' curiosity to know each other and collaborate on this monumental desire to co-create the future of belonging infrastructures. Below are three avenues our GSL will explore and act on to co-create the future we wish to see.
- Engagements and Learning - We understand that the first step in building trust and relations is getting to know each other (bridging). The GSL activities will facilitate this large-scale bridging and allow us to engage with various Global South communities to build relationships, amplify knowledge, and develop strategies for moving toward a world of mutual respect and belonging.
- Praxies and Narratives - The GSL intends to serve as a hub for developing inclusive and translatable global narratives that move people and institutions toward a vision of the world that we all belong, including the natural world. As such, the GSL will serve as meeting points for departure to build broad, lasting, transitional, across sectors strategies capable of realizing the work of belonging.
- Incubator for Collaborations - The GSL's ultimate goal is to be an incubator for various collaborations. Partnering with Global South civil society organizations, social movements, and academic research centers will facilitate regional convenings across sectors and geographies to share novel practices and learning and assess actionable strategies. The aim is to build a global hub based on mutual understanding and trust for future collaborations.
Explore other projects
Climate Displacement and Resilience Database
African Just Transitions
