The Global South is dead, long live the Global South! The intersectionality of social and geographic hierarchies in global capitalism

Abstract

This article explores two critical approaches to the study of the continuing relevance of the North—South divide. One is based on a postcolonial politics of difference and stresses the fundamental geographic divergences between the North and South. The other, referred to as the global capitalism school, argues that the North—South divide is rendered obsolete by social divisions, represented by the rise of a transnational capitalist class. I criticize the former due to its dismissal of the idea of capitalism as a universal force. In regards to the latter, to determine whether the primary fault line in global capitalism revolves around transnationally organized classes, I conduct an interpretive analysis of the world views of capitalist elites in Latin America. My findings demonstrate the complex, intersecting nature of different axes of identity, and contradict this literature by suggesting the continuing relevance of a place-based North—South divide. In other words, neither position can by itself elucidate the contours of our contemporary global economic system. What I propose is a framework that captures the intersectionality between the social and geographic within a universal story of capitalist globalization. The key is to conceptualize how global capitalism operates as a universalizing force, but not a homogenizing one.