PPT 6 - THE GLOBAL DIVIDE

• Immanuel Wallerstein


  American sociologist and economic historian, best known for his ideas on world-systems theory, notably expounded on his book The Modern World System, in 1974
• World-Systems Theory


  • Core states- characterized as having advanced economies, high degree of industrialization, political and cultural influence, stable political system
  • Semi-periphery states- characterized as having relatively strong economy and established cultural system but are not influential in the international sphere. They are economically industrialized
  • Periphery states- underdeveloped countries which are dependent on core countries. They have mostly agrarian, weak economies
• Dependency Theory


  Raúl Prebisch's theory that countries do not develop as isolated units, but are linked to the global capitalist system which is unequal as resources are shifted from its periphery to the core. It is a critique to Modernization Theory.
• Modernity/Coloniality


  Forms of domination are ongoing, with persistence of cultural, political, and economic oppression of subordinate groups, with or without colonial administrations
• The concept of the global divide, more commonly known as the North-South divide, was popularized in the late 20th century and the early 21st century. According to the concept, the world is divided into the Global North and the Global South.

  
• Willy Brandt


  Former chancellor of West Germany, conceptualized the idea of the Global North-South Divide. He was a Nobel Prize recipient for his efforts in strengthening the EEC and spearheaded the idea of Ostpolitik.
• Commonalities of Periphery, Global South, Developing Countries, and Third World

  • Not very different from the segregationist notion of developed or under-developed countries
  • Shared characteristics of being oppressed and/or marginalized
  • Obscures material reality of global inequality offered by Third Worldism and Underdevelopment
• Proponents' views on the term 'Global South'

  • Neutral (Hollington et al., 2015)
  • Describes a shared condition of the "world's subalterns" (Lopez, 2007)
  • Horizontal and non-hierarchical (Mahler, 2018)
  • Transcends the notion of a geographical term
  • Site of knowledge production
• Boaventura de Sousa


  Brazilian sociologist known for his intellectual project "Epistemologies of the South", used the word epistemicide to explain the destruction, erasure, and marginalization of knowledge forms unfitted to the secular, scientific, pseudo-universalist, capitalist, imperialist, (hetero) sexist, and racist modern worldview of the Global North
• The divide has also been manifested in the so-called "digital divide". This describes global disparities, primarily between developed and developing countries, in regards to access to computing and information resources such as the Internet and the opportunities derived from such access.
• Economic Divide


  In its simplest form, the digital divide is manifested in the fact that some people can't afford to buy a computer. This issue in the industrial world has largely become obsolete but in developing countries, computers will remain out of the average citizen's reach for 20 years or more.
• Usability Divide


  Far worse than the economic divide is the fact that technology remains so complicated that many people couldn't use a computer even if they got one for free. Many others can use computers, but don't achieve the modern world's full benefits because most of the available services are too difficult for them to understand.
• Digital Skills Levels


  • Advanced Digital Skills: ability to write programs and engineer software
  • Standard Digital Skills: use a basic arithmetic formula in a spreadsheet; connect and install new devices; create presentations; and find, download, install, and configure software
  • Basic Digital Skills: copying or moving a file or folder, using copy and paste to duplicate or move information within a document or folder, sending emails with attachments, and transferring files between computer and other computers
• Empowerment Divide


  Even if computers and the Internet were extraordinarily easy to use, not everybody would make full use of the opportunities that such technology affords.