A Thirdspace approach to the ‘Global South’: insights from the margins of a popular category

Abstract

The increasing popularity of cursory references to the ‘Global South’ across disciplines and issue areas asks for an in-depth engagement with ‘South’-related terminology. I employ Edward Soja’s Thirdspace as a heuristic for investigating different meanings of the ‘Global South’ with reference to concrete empirical realities in international development. To examine and illustrate what Soja’s trialectics of material, imagined and lived spatialities has to offer, I focus on evidence from Mexico and Turkey. Located somewhere at the boundaries – or the conceptual margins – of the ‘Global South’, Mexico and Turkey sit right where an investigation promises to be particularly fruitful. With a Firstspace perspective, I focus on the mappings of development indices and the material boundaries of the ‘Global South’. With a Secondspace perspective, I analyse the imagined geographies of alliances in multilateral negotiations and the arena of South–South cooperation. With a Thirdspace perspective, I engage with the lifeworlds of public officials and unpack the ways in which the ‘Global South’ appears via individual strategies and practices. Insights from Mexico and Turkey provide evidence for the diversity of meanings attached to the ‘Global South’ and illustrate how Soja’s three-legged heuristic offers a framework for critical engagement with popular taken-for-granted categories.