Skip to main content
Disciplines
Automotive Business IT + Informatics Construction + Real Estate Electrical Engineering + Electronics Energy + Sustainability Insurance + Risk Finance + Banking Management + Leadership Marketing + Sales Mechanical Engineering + Materials
Events
DE
EN
Books
Journals
Topic Page
Marketing
Start single access now
Access for companies
EXTENDED SEARCH
Log in
Top
Published in:
Mapping Cross-Cultural Exchange: Jaime Cortesão’s Dialogues and Documents on the Role of Indigenous Knowledge in Brazilian Exploration Read chapter Read first chapter

2020 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

5. Do Not Cross. The ‘North/South’ Divide: A Means of Domination?

Author : Pascal Clerc

Published in: Decolonising and Internationalising Geography

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Log in

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config
loading …

Abstract

This paper would like to interrogate the concept of ‘North’, the concept of ‘South’ and the binary pattern which associates them: ‘North/South’. These two concepts, developed during the seventies and eighties, seem to be more neutral than other terms such as ‘underdeveloped countries’ or ‘rich countries’. But actually, it appears as a way to naturalize a division of the world in two categories of countries. This division, very stable for almost 40 years, is not a scientific way to think about the world. It is not a statistic division but more a heritage, and a vision of the world as immutable even against the facts.

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 102.000 Bücher
  • über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Automobil + Motoren
  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
  • Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
  • Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 67.000 Bücher
  • über 390 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Automobil + Motoren
  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
  • Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
  • Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe




 

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 67.000 Bücher
  • über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Versicherung + Risiko




Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now
previous chapter Indian Ocean Small Islands Along the Postcolonial Trajectory: Chagos and the Maldives
next chapter Drone Photography and the Re-aestheticisation of Nature
Footnotes
1
The number of occurrences is huge. I decided to limit my corpus to papers containing the words ‘North’ and/or ‘South’ in the title. I analyzed 390 papers.
 
2
In France, each elector receives an electoral circular (also called ‘profession de foi’) for each candidate. It is a document that presents the ideas, values and projects of the candidates.
 
3
It is worth noting that the French educational system is heavily centralized: primary and secondary level teachers have little freedom in choosing their teaching’s topics and, for that, any view of the world imposed by Ministerial guidelines is susceptible of indoctrinating millions of young French students.
 
4
‘The South is primitive and backward. The North is progress and future. The South is the result of a racial and sexual system of social classification, a binary epistemology that opposes high and low, mind and body, head and feet, rationalization and emotion, theory and practice. (…) The South is potentially sick, weak, stupid, incapable, lazy, poor. (…) The North is always healthier, stronger, smarter, cleaner, more productive, richer’.
 
Literature
Besse J-M (2003) Les grandeurs de la terre. Aspects du savoir géographique à la Renaissance, ENS Éditions, Lyon
Besse J-M (2004) Le lieu en histoire des sciences. Hypothèses pour une approche spatiale du savoir géographique au XVe siècle. Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Italie et Méditerranée 116(2):401–422
Besse J-M, Clerc P, Robic M-C (2017) Qu’est-ce que le «spatial turn»? Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines 30:207–238
Brandt W (1980) Nord-Sud, un programme de survie. Gallimard, Paris
Chrétien J-P (ed) (2008) L’Afrique de Sarkozy. Un déni d’histoire, Karthala, Paris
De Luca E (1999) Trois chevaux. Gallimard, Paris
Dufour F (2007) Dire «le Sud»: quand l’autre catégorise le monde. Autrepart 41:27–39CrossRef
Grataloup C (2009) L’invention des continents. Larousse, Paris
Hancock C (2007) «Délivrez-nous de l’exotisme»: quelques réflexions sur des impensés de la recherche géographique sur les Suds (et les Nords). Autrepart 41:69–81CrossRef
Jullien F (2012) L’écart et l’entre. Leçon inaugurale de la Chaire sur l’altérité, Galilée, Paris
Lewis MW, Wigen K (1997) The myth of continents. University of California Press, Berkeley, A critique of metageography
Mignolo WD (2011) The global south and world dis/order. J Anthropol Res 67–2:165–188CrossRef
Orain O (2009) De plain-pied dans le monde. Écriture et réalisme dans la géographie française au XXe siècle, Harmattan, Paris
Preciado PB (2019) Un appartement sur Uranus. Grasset, Paris
Raison JP (2007) Nommer, c’est créer un peu. De «Tiers-Monde» à «Tropicalisme»: les avatars d’un vocabulaire. Autrepart 41:57–68CrossRef
Sparke M (2007) Everywhere but always somewhere: critical geographies of the Global South. The Global South 1:117–126CrossRef
Metadata
Title
Do Not Cross. The ‘North/South’ Divide: A Means of Domination?
Author
Pascal Clerc
Copyright Year
2020
Book
Decolonising and Internationalising Geography

Print ISBN: 978-3-030-49515-2

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-49516-9

Copyright Year: 2020

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49516-9_5

Premium Partner

    Image Credits