Hi everyone! On today’s second post of the week, let’s look at the group of people we will be learning about the following weeks. Where did the term Global South come from? Are countries included in this region from the Southern Hemisphere? Why do we need to learn more about them? Why study pollution in this region than in its counterpart, the Global North?
A simple search on Google will be able to give you a list of countries in the region. Countries in the Global South come from all parts of the earth, such as the African continent, South and Latin America, the Arab states, as well as Asia and the Pacific. The term explains the dominance countries in the Global North have over the Global South. Many scholars tend to interchangeably use the term with other terms such as the Third World or developing countries. These countries face various socio-economic and political issues more acutely than countries in the Global North (e.g. poverty, population growth, war, disease, and more) (Dados & Connell, 2012). In this blog, I plan to uncover how 11 different countries from the Global South grapple with pollution. These include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Fiji, Haiti, Indonesia, Madagascar, Mongolia, Pakistan, Ukraine, and Vietnam.
Without paying much attention to what was being said in the video, any person would be able to grasp the severity of pollution in the Global South, just by viewing the grounded reality and experiences of these marginalized people. These countries do not have the capacity to manage pollution and prevent it from happening because they are grappling with other pressing issues. To make matters worse, different countries in the Global South face various forms of pollution, that vary in terms of how they are measured, and how they affect societies and their environments. For example, some countries measure air pollution by counting the number of particles, like dust and mould, that are 10 micrometers in diameter. Other countries focus on counting fine particles from combustion and metals that are 2.4 micrometers in diameter. The differences in measuring air quality exemplifies how pollution is interpreted and managed differently.
In each week, I will be summarizing insights from academic papers and attaching videos like the one today, so that we can engage more attentively with the serious issues faced by the countries I previously mentioned. I am excited to share with you all that I will discover during my research.
Up next, Afghanistan. See you in the next one! ✿
References
Dados, N. and Connell, R. (2012) The Global South. Contexts. 11(1), 12–13. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177/1536504212436479. [Accessed: 16 January 2022].
DW Documentary (2018) The rich, the poor and the trash. 9 June. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_e7eFSkEjw [Accessed: 16 January 2022].
NowThis World (2016) What Are The World’s Most Polluted Cities? 1 December. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqH9e58ngAk [Accessed: 16 January 2022].