✿ What is the Global South?

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].

✿ Hello! ✧˖*°࿐

Hi everyone! My name is Sumaiyah, and I am a Year 4 student taking the GE4237 Environmental Pollution module at the National University of Singapore. The targeted audience of my work includes my lecturers Prof David Taylor and Dr. Chen Mengli, as well as my dear coursemates. Despite this, I’d like to make full use of this module, and write my future blog posts with the wider public in mind. I feel the need to address this beforehand because I’m concerned about random people stumbling upon my blog (I actually enrolled in the module because I stumbled upon the work of previous students)!

Now that that is out of the way, you would be wondering about the story behind my blog name, as well as the colors used in its design!

Firstly, Sullied South is a play at alliteration so that people easily remember my blog’s name. As its subtitle explains, my blog will feature posts on the issues of pollution in many countries in the Global South. Being a student of Geography, I believe that it is important to study things happening in the world by referring them back to actual locations on the world map.

Secondly, the pink colors illustrate not only my love for the color but also my interest in feminist geopolitics. The Department of Geography at the National University of Singapore provides undergraduates with the flexibility of pursuing the various branches of the discipline. After spending 7 semesters (i.e. 3.5 years) in the institution, I find that political geography and geopolitics fascinate me the most. As such, I believe I can share with all of you my take on environmental pollution, through an alternative, and human, lens. In sum, Sullied South aims to provide readers with the grounded and embodied experiences of those in the Global South, in the face of environmental pollution.

I hope you enjoy reading through my future posts! See you in the next one! ✿