Global South Research Articles

The Impact of Virtual Exchanges Using English as a Lingua Franca on Students’ Linguistic and Intercultural Competence

We created an eight-week virtual exchange (VE) programme called the Virtual Culture Trip which enabled 68 students from seven countries to engage in online intercultural interaction under the guidance of educators. This study investigated participants’ perceived language skill improvement and intercultural competence (IC) after the programme, the change in their interest in the VE discussion topics, and the relationship between their self-perceived improvement and background factors. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted on data obtained from the pre- and post-surveys of 48 students. Results showed that participants believed that their language skills and the four IC constructs (i.e., knowledge, attitudes, awareness and skills) significantly improved. They also seemed to become more interested in the discussion topics. Some statistically significant differences were observed in the abilities to use the language between males and females and these differences might also be associated with the interaction between gender and prior VE experience. Moreover, the interaction between age and English level led to statistically significant differences in their perceived development of intercultural skills. The study shed light on how VE conducted through English as a Lingua Franca can be an enabling means to facilitate interactions across Global North and Global South countries despite challenges posed by geographical immobility due to resource limitations or a global pandemic.

Enhancing brain health in the global south through a sex and gender lens

Enhancing brain health in the global south through a sex and gender lens

Routes of importation and spatial dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 variants during localised interventions in Chile

Abstract Human mobility is strongly associated with the spread of SARS-CoV-2 via air travel on an international scale, and with population mixing and the number of people moving between locations on a local scale. However, these conclusions are drawn mostly from observations in the context of the global north where international and domestic connectivity is heavily influenced by the air travel network; scenarios where land-based mobility can also dominate viral spread remain understudied. Furthermore, research on the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) has mostly focused on national- or regional-scale implementations, leaving gaps in our understanding of the potential benefits of implementing NPIs at higher granularity. Here, we use Chile as a model to explore the role of human mobility on disease spread within the global south; the country implemented a systematic genomic surveillance program and NPIs at a very high spatial granularity. We combine viral genomic data, anonymised human mobility data from mobile phones and official records of international travellers entering the country to characterise the routes of importation of different variants, the relative contributions of airport and land border importations and the real-time impact of the country’s mobility network on the diffusion of SARS-CoV-2. The introduction of variants which are dominant in neighbouring countries (and not detected through airport genomic surveillance) is predicted by land border crossings and not by air travellers, and the strength of connectivity between comunas (Chile’s lowest administrative divisions) predicts the time of arrival of imported lineages to new locations. A higher stringency of local NPIs was also associated with fewer domestic viral importations. Our analysis sheds light on the drivers of emerging respiratory infectious disease spread outside of air travel, and on the consequences of disrupting regular movement patterns at lower spatial scales.

Algorithmic governance or extortion? Everyday experiences of fintech for loans in Nigeria

ABSTRACT This paper aims to understand the everyday experiences of financialised inclusion amongst fintech users in Nigeria. Concerns about the use of fintech to drive financial inclusion in the global south have led social scientific scholars to argue that it extends processes of financialisation by employing opaque algorithms to extract the behavioural data of users in order to inundate them with unsecured credit and monetise their data through resale. The consequences of these practices are not fully understood across various contexts. Using a variety of ethnographic methods, this paper examines patterns of fintech adoption and usage in Jimeta, Nigeria. It demonstrates that while fintech allows people to sort out their personal issues amidst precarity, it is also entangled in algorithmic governance issues that facilitate algorithmic extortion to the detriment of user populations. Ultimately, the paper argues that fintech, contrary to claims about its potential to unlock prosperity, is one that opens up novel possibilities for profit making and accumulation, albeit with severe consequences on user populations.

‘Taming’ a Wicked Problem: Selective Problematisation of Issues of Urban Water Supply in Mumbai

The lack of universal urban water access in the cities in the global south is a wicked problem. Using the case of Mumbai, this paper illustrates how consistently this wicked problem was chiselled and selectively problematised to turn it into a tame problem – a problem of water shortages at the city level. The chiselling included neglecting the essential aspects of urban water supply, such as supply coverage, pressure and leakages, which define the quality of urban water service received by citizens. Through chiselling and selective problematisation, the paper illustrates how the problem of providing universal urban water access in Mumbai was ignored for decades and the issues of water shortages were emphasised alone to justify and prioritise the development of dams.

Reviewing the use of monitoring tools for rural water pumps in the Global South

The establishment of improved water supplies is one of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. Many water schemes have provided wells and pumps to enhance the life of local communities across Africa. However, in numerous cases, these schemes fail over time due to a lack of established maintenance regimes and trained staff. One of the ways that resilience might be improved is the introduction of remote monitoring systems to allow the detection of failed pumps and enable predictions of when a pump might fail without intervention, thus allowing the associated loss of service to be minimised, ensuring that the community is not without safe drinking water for extended periods. This paper pulls together the knowledge and details of remote monitoring systems that are available in the field today and provides a coherent knowledge base of the work that is being done. The paper also reviews how each system is compiled, along with their strengths and weaknesses, and provides background knowledge that should encourage future research and development in the field. Whether such systems, with their reliance on microprocessors, are appropriate for the Global South is discussed.

“All Roads Lead to South”: India and China in Global South Narratives and Practices

“All Roads Lead to South”: India and China in Global South Narratives and Practices

Decentralized sanitation alternatives in cities of the global south—A case of constructed wetlands in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

Constructed wetlands have emerged as a sustainable alternative for decentralized wastewater treatment in developing countries which face challenges with urbanization and deteriorating infrastructure. This paper discusses the key factors affecting the implementation of constructed wetlands in developing countries. A case study research design was adopted, which focused on Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. A mixed-method approach was adopted for the study. Spatial analysis was conducted to identify potential sites for constructed wetlands in the city of Bulawayo. Semi structured interviews were conducted, with relevant stakeholders, such as town planners, civil engineers, NGO representatives, community leaders, and quantity surveyors. The findings reveal that political reforms, public acceptance, land availability, and funding are crucial for the successful implementation of constructed wetlands. Additionally, four sites were identified as the most favorable preliminary locations for these systems. The paper captures all the key factors relevant to the implementation of constructed wetlands (CWs) with a closer look at policy and the role it plays in the adoption of decentralized wastewater treatment systems. Formulating policy around the decentralized sanitation systems was considered imperative to the success of the systems whether in implementation or in operation. The paper adds to knowledge in the subject of sustainable wastewater treatment alternatives for developing countries. However, further research can be conducted with a different methodology to ascertain the applicability of the systems in developing urban cities considering other important aspects in the implementation of wastewater treatment systems.

Climate justice beliefs related to climate action and policy support around the world

AbstractClimate justice is increasingly prominent in climate change communication and advocacy but little is known about public understanding of the concept or how widely it resonates with different groups. In our global survey of 5,627 adults in 11 countries spanning the global north and south, most participants (66.2%) had never heard of climate justice. Nonetheless, endorsement of climate justice beliefs was widespread (for example, acknowledging the disproportionate impact of climate change on poor people and the underpinning roles of capitalism and colonialism in the climate crisis). Climate justice beliefs were also associated with various indices of climate action and policy support. These associations tended to be stronger in countries with high GHG emissions and where social inequality is also more politically salient. The results highlight the value of climate justice as a motive for climate action across diverse geographical contexts.

Global south perspectives on methodology and critique in international law

Global south perspectives on methodology and critique in international law

The value of indigenous knowledge for enhancing smallholders’ resilience to climate change and food insecurity: a case study of small-scale irrigation system in Niger

ABSTRACT The global south faces challenges in enhancing smallholder farmers' resilience to climate change and food insecurity. Indigenous knowledge and small-scale irrigation (SSI) systems are being promoted as a viable solution to address these challenges. This paper explores how smallholder farmers use local knowledge to establish informal and farmer-led SSI to enhance smallholders' resilience in agriculture and livelihoods. A qualitative research approach with 79 semi-structured interviews was carried out with farmers' households in Tamaske rural community in Southwest Niger, followed by thematic and statistical analysis. The results revealed that an alternative SSI strategy is mostly based on internal agencies rather than externally supported and it serves as a tool to enhance household food and income security amid climate change. The empirical case allows us to assess the value of indigenous knowledge in agriculture by asking how local people can bring together ideas and resources to enhance SSI and build resilience to climate change. The study suggests that the initiation and multiplication of SSI systems can be achieved by farmers' own agencies if appropriate technology and cooperation mechanisms are selected. The policy focus should promote simple, root-based technology as limited government financial support in the global south may hinder this progress.

Governmentality, Democracy, and Liberalism: Desire in Samrat Upadhyay’s ‘The Guru of Love’

In Samrat Upadhyay’s The Guru of Love (2003), the political and the personal intersect, with the novel as a genre exposing how they are interwoven. In the Nepali-American novelist Upadhyay’s novel, democracy and liberalism operate through the management and redirection of desires, instead of constraining them. The novel itself, as a genre, becomes the canvas for orchestrating this transformative process, engaging both characters and readers. Set against the backdrop of Nepal in the global south, The Guru of Love challenges conventional notions, suggesting that democracy’s efficacy does not hinge on industrialisation and education alone. Instead, democracy itself can serve as a potent political tool for nurturing a citizenry that favours such politics. As this novel shows, the key tenet of liberal and capitalist governance lies in the augmentation and regulation of the individual’s desires. Upadhyay’s novel is a testament to the celebration of individualism and shows the workings of capitalist and liberal deregulation as a mechanism for managing and channelling desires. It portrays how these political ideologies shape and mould the individual’s personal aspirations and society’s political paradigms.

Unravelling Socio-Technological Barriers to AI Integration: A Qualitative Study of Southern African Newsrooms

This study explores the socio-technological barriers to the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered solutions in three countries of the global south – South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini, Botswana and Zimbabwe. Through 20 in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, it examines the distribution and circulation of AI technologies within selected newsrooms. Furthermore, the article explores socio-technological obstacles to the integration of AI among journalists. Lastly, it examines the consequences of these socio-technological obstacles to journalism. The article specifically seeks to answer three questions: How are AI technologies integrated in southern African newsrooms? What are the socio-technological barriers attendant to the use of AI in selected news organisations of sub-Saharan Africa? What are the implications of these socio-technological barriers to the process of news production in these newsrooms? The article reveals the challenges hindering the development and deployment of AI in these organisations, and I highlight the detrimental effects of limited AI access, which places Southern African media organisations at a disadvantage on the global stage, perpetuating socio-technological disparities between the global north and global south. The findings underscore the urgency of addressing these barriers in order to reduce information inequality, increase efficiency and productivity and improve audience engagement. Reducing technological barriers and democratising AI integration can enhance the influence of Southern African media in promoting domestic and international equity. The article therefore, propose a model for AI adoption and reduction of technological barriers in adopting these technolgies. This study emphasises the need for collaborative efforts among policymakers, industry leaders and stakeholders to create an inclusive environment that maximises the potential of AI for the greater benefit of parts of Southern African societies. The study adds to extant literature at the intersection of AI and media, particularly how AI technologies are impacting on specific communities of practice, like newsroom organisations.

Fighting Malaria Sustainably: An Investigation of the Innovation System for Biobased Malaria Repellents in East Africa

This paper investigates a biobased innovation system producing a catnip plant-based mosquito repellent developed to fight malaria in East Africa. We adopt a technological innovation system (TIS) methodology. Previous studies on TIS in the global south emphasized innovation diffusion, rather than development. In contrast, we study the catnip-based mosquito repellents in East Africa, a R&D and innovation driven TIS. Our results highlight the potential of innovation development in East Africa by demonstrating strong TIS functions such as entrepreneurial activity, knowledge sharing, and legitimacy building. However, the TIS functions, market creation, resource mobilisation and policy guidance were relatively weak. This suggests that the innovation challenges in East Africa are not always related to a lack of knowledge generation or entrepreneurial capabilities, but more due to a structural feature such as lack of finance, resources, and supportive policies. Our study also demonstrates how local bio-entrepreneurs benefit from business incubation through regional cooperation.

The third era of genomics is at risk of being dismantled across the global south.

The first era of genomics started with the publication of Watson and Crick's notable work on the description of the DNA double helix in 1953. This era lasted 50 years, until the publication of the human genome in April 2003. The second era is associated with the period between the completion of the human genome and the present day. I argue that, with the discontinuity caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the spread and increased use of genomics to every corner of the world, we are entering a new, third era of genomics that provides major opportunities to advance the health of humans, animals, and the planet. However, this can only happen if the capacity that has greatly expanded in recent years is maintained and expanded further rather than left to atrophy, particularly across the global south.

The Emergence of Modern Prose Narrative in Iraq: Maḥmūd Aḥmad al-Sayyid and the Search for Form

Abstract This paper examines the efforts of the early twentieth century writer Mahmud Ahmad al-Sayyid (1903–1937) to remake literary culture in Iraq. Al-Sayyid’s essays advocated abandoning what he characterized as socially disinterested and decorative prose, urging Arab writers to embrace a literature of social commitment. Al-Sayyid charted a path that sought to distance Arabic cultural production from European influence, envisioning literary rebirth through the politics of anti-colonialism and by establishing solidarity with other colonized peoples. Yet these efforts were itinerant and often contradictory. Al-Sayyid’s circuitous path toward an embrace of the realist short story embodies the complexities of cultural formation during a dramatic historical shift. Aesthetically, these complexities manifest in the syncretism of al-Sayyid’s fiction, which engaged with and reproduced extant Arabic literary forms and themes. This article historicizes the emergence of a modern prose tradition in Iraq through critical assessments of the early modern Iraqi maqāmah and the short prose form of the ruʾyā, arguing that the circulations of these local forms were critical to the making of the reformist prose of al-Sayyid. It then examines the novella Jalāl Khālid, arguing that the text’s formal indeterminacy and narration of romantic and revolutionary failure inscribes an ironic stance toward the project of the nation and its aesthetic corollary, the novel. Finally, the article analyzes al-Sayyid’s short story “Sakrān” (1929), which is emblematic of a decades-long realist trend in Iraqi prose fiction that reoriented Iraqi prose toward a global trend of literary realism in the global south.

Multilayered politicized constructions of COVID-19 vaccines: A global south view of Pfizer and Sinovac

Despite their overwhelming public health benefits for pandemic response, Covid-19 vaccines have been subject to political controversy around the world. Multidisciplinary scholarship in the health and social sciences points to a wide range of factors that influence the public’s divided views of vaccines. But these factors have largely been considered in relative isolation from each other as independent influences on vaccine beliefs. In this paper, we propose a multilayered politico-psychological model of collective constructions of the Covid-19 vaccines. Borrowing from Montiel and Christie’s (2007) theoretical framework, we examine how the Covid-19 vaccines are holistically constructed in relation to interdependent social meanings across micro-level, meso-level, and macro-level socio-ecological layers. Harnessing a mixed methods research design, we apply this framework to analyze a large corpus of Filipino tweets (N = 229,236) about the Pfizer and Sinovac vaccines. Micro-level discourses feature competing individual emotions which construct Pfizer as an object of desire and Sinovac as an object of fear. Meso-level constructions invoke collective contexts of information and resource scarcity within which Pfizer is a serendipitous prize while Sinovac is a mandated responsibility. Finally, macro-level constructions embed the Covid-19 vaccines within national and international structures, framing Pfizer as a symbol of political integrity and Sinovac as an instrument of political corruption for government leaders. In conclusion, these multilayered discourses around the Covid-19 vaccines illuminate complex negotiations of agency among a Global South public during the pandemic. We discuss multilevel interventions and politico-psychological implications for public health campaigns more broadly.

Understanding migration power in international studies

Abstract Where and how does power operate in the governance of international migration? Migrants and refugees are increasingly used for strategic purposes in international politics, but scholarship on this matter has yet to engage thoroughly with the central International Relations concept of power. This article draws on the thinking of Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall to propose a well-rounded picture of the multiple forms of power in, through or against migration that are mobilized by states and other international actors. We thus conceptualize migration power across two relational dimensions: the nature of the social relations between the actors involved (interactive or constitutive) and the specificity of such relations (direct or diffuse). This leads us to distinguish between four complementary types of migration power—compulsory, institutional, structural and productive—and to identify the main causal mechanisms through which they operate. We argue that power in international migration governance is diffuse, wielded by a wide range of actors, unevenly spread across its different dimensions, and yet, deeply asymmetrical in its distribution along intersecting axes: namely global North vs South, as well as state vs non-state. Beyond academia, the recognition of this complexity can encourage more reflexivity in policy-making and more sensitivity among practitioners.

Social sustainability of neighbourhood parks in India - instrument content validity

Neighbourhood parks are the most proximate public spaces that promote physical and mental health, well-being and happiness, social cohesion, a sense of community, etc. This vital resource can help create socially sustainable neighbourhoods in global south cities. This paper aims to develop a validated assessment framework for the social sustainability of neighbourhood parks in India. Thematic literature analysis is used to construct an assessment instrument consisting of ten variables and eighty-one indicators related to the social sustainability of neighbourhood parks. The instrument is checked for content validity through expert review using the Content Validity Index. Use of parks by people engaged in informal economic enterprises in neighbourhoods and by non-residents, the significance of ‘third places’ in park use, safety concerns, and sociocultural aspects of perception of safety emerge as essential variables to be considered in the Indian context. The high CVI of the developed instrument indicates excellent content validity. The instrument is designed to assess the provision, user perception and social use of neighbourhood green spaces in Indian cities to promote social sustainability.

Education as oppression

In assessing leverage points to promote educational equality, this paper examines Freire’s concept of education as oppression to highlight the potential of reclaiming resources currently dedicated to oppressive education. Harel Ben-Shahar’s concepts of education as a positional good as well as the potential lack of instrumental value in contributing to students’ social, health, relational, and other holistic aspects of wellbeing are mobilized to disentangle varying forms of education. Practitioner experience with students living with disabilities in a postcolonial global south establishes the foundational context to consider how education has capacity to challenge the following: economic domination; restraint on traditional Indigenous knowledge; limited basic livelihood; and media stereotypes on effort committed by the marginalized—yet often chooses not to. Disentangling what precisely constitutes education as oppression emerges as a challenging task, since Freire’s conceptualization of conformity is often required of students if they wish to meet essential survival needs. Lisu case studies in rural agricultural economies, traditional ecological knowledge, and postcolonial curriculum demonstrate that education as oppression can emerge naturally with or without intent, and that education mobilized to gatekeep social resources or justify the inequitable distribution of life opportunities can reinforce existing systematic inequalities. Notably, resources and opportunities in disadvantaged communities can already be stratified by preexisting racist; sexist; ableist; classist; or colonial discrimination, and suggest that the intersection between education and basic survival of students should not be viewed as too tangential or basic for future policy discourse. Four forms of education as oppression are preliminarily considered, toward supporting future discourse on eliminating inadvertent oppressive impacts via funded pedagogy.