Learning from the Global South

While challenges from climate change to economic inequality and AI are intricately interconnected and global in scope, conversations about ways forward are dominated by thinkers based in the United States and Europe. GGD is an effort to amplify the voices of the Global South, generating a conversation informed by the more diverse historical experiences and traditions of the global majority.

During the April 2024 launch of the Georgetown Global Dialogues in Washington, DC, several sessions addressed the importance of learning from the Global South:

A More Inclusive International Conversation

The global challenges we face 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 global public debates.

Mohsin Hamid

"Part of the challenge we face now is to begin to articulate new convincing shared visions of the future that human beings can partake of that are compelling to us, that lead us in this interdependent world to something better."

Verónica Gago

"The Georgetown dialogues acknowledge the different trajectories and genealogies and concerns that we bring here. They are a platform for future imagination of these kind of conversations."

"What the Global South Can Teach Us"

In this Berkley Center Lecture, Pankaj Mishra argues that breaking out of the old regime of intellectual inequality and calibrating the moral and intellectual legacy of the Global South is more urgent than ever before in our age of polycrisis.

A Diversity of Global South Perspectives

Giving more voice to the Global South must go beyond listening to governments and their allies. The experience of colonialism and ongoing struggles for democracy and human rights have inspired diverse currents of thought in literature, criticism, arts, and the social sciences. The perspectives of thinkers and artists from the Global South will deepen our understanding of challenges facing global humanity and how best to address them.

Ranjit Hoskote

"We tend to sometimes speak of the Global South as if it's postcolonial. The Global North is also postcolonial. Empires that have lost their colonies are also postcolonial. There's no neutral objectivity here."

"Cracks in Concrete"

In this GGD Forum essay Mohsin Hamid describes the world as he sees it from Lahore, Pakistan. People feel that we are at a global impasse and that the time has come to imagine and to try something else.

A Central Place for Literature and the Arts

Many traditional modes of reportage and commentary are struggling amid the political antagonism and polarization around the world. Literature and the arts, with their innate virtues of ambiguity and irony and openness to paradox and contradiction, help us extend sympathies across hardened boundaries. Artists of all kinds from the Global South have much to contribute to debates about ways forward in a divided world.

Nesrine Malik

"We need new stories, but we also need to write them ourselves. It will not be easy and it will not happen overnight. But one thing is certain as far as the keepers of the status quo are concerned: it is too late. They will be hearing from us."

Cross-linkages with other GGD goals:

Advancing a Global Vision of Human Equality: Learning from the Global South broadens our understanding of equality and how to pursue it.
Elevating Youth Perspectives on Global Challenges: Bringing in more youth voices from the Global South enriches international debates about ways future in a divided world.
Building a Culture of Encounter: Listening to and learning from the Global South generates a wider international conversation with richly contrasting points of view.