The global challenges we face—from climate change and pandemics to rampant nationalism, security competition, and war—demand the full intellectual resources of global humanity. But the structures of knowledge production and dissemination remain heavily weighted against the Global South. While the relative decline of the United States and Europe has shifted the economic and political balance of power on a global scale, the West continues to generate the dominant narratives that shape the incipient global public sphere. Nesrine Malik has argued persuasively that we need new, more inclusive stories to inform a new, emerging global reality.
How does global intellectual inequality today differ from that of an earlier, colonial era? What obstacles stand in the way of a less unequal global public sphere—one in which voices from the Global South are heard more loudly and clearly around the common challenges facing humanity? What are creative ways to overcome those obstacles in practice? Ranjit Hoskote, Nesrine Malik, and K. Anthony Appiah explored these questions in a conversation moderated by Negar Azimi.
This event was part of the Georgetown Global Dialogues, which featured leading intellectuals from the Global South in forward-looking conversations with U.S.-based thinkers across a range of topics. It was co-sponsored by the African Studies Program, Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation, Department of English, Georgetown Humanities Initiative, and Georgetown University Library at Georgetown University.
