talking terms
I’m trying to find a more accurate and respectful way of talking about ‘poor’ locales in relation to ‘rich’ locales, globally speaking. Traditionally one would say ‘Third World’ and ‘First World’, or ‘developed’ and ‘developing’. They’re both very powerful and very problematic. The first pair is politically very out-dated. The second is slightly less out-dated, but has more explicit overtones - it sets up the ‘rich’ world as having a standard that the ‘poor’ world do not reach. Whilst it acknowledges inequality, it is also this sort of mentality that perpetuates the ‘Third World’ debt cycle (e.g. through ’structural adjustment’ programs which attach harsh conditions to aid money).
And of course, people and their circumstances do not divide neatly into two groups … particularly when they don’t define *themselves* as Third World or rich or whatever.
I’m essentially talking about the different material conditions people live in, and how they can be compared. I want to be clear that, yes, certain places are poor. People in them do not have food, water, health care or education. In comparison, others places are rich. They have food, water, health care and education in abundance. So I wonder if referring to “materially poor” locales and “materially rich” locales is one way of going about it …
i reckon the ‘north and south’ one is the best one cos it displays:
a. clear lack of ‘My First Atlas’ as a child
b. a bitterness at living in a cold country and thus believing that people in warm countries are too busy sunbathing to develop economy, trade etc.
c. the fact that it’s not only applied to the whooole world, but to individual countries for added insanity/hilarity
Comment by matrine — 3/21/2005 @ 1:26 pm
Heh. I’d forgotten about north and south. Had never quite understood it till now!
I had also forgotten about minority/majority world … probably invented by New Internationalist, and probably the best one …
Comment by ann — 3/21/2005 @ 2:48 pm
or go with the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ for it’s Woman’s Weekly-esque style. i reckon the word ‘locales’ is a bit too northern majority.
there’s a small article here on this issue http://www.sustainabletimes.ca/names.htm
But it’s Canadian.
Comment by matrine — 3/21/2005 @ 7:31 pm
that’s a v. useful article! cheeeers.
the idea of using the word ‘locales’ is to get away from terms like ‘country’ which can mask the presence of elites et al …. to delineate the specificity of each location’s conditions and allow more scope for people within those locations to define it for themselves … does it have particular connotations?
Comment by ann — 3/22/2005 @ 10:06 am
I have been wrestling with this problem for a while. You missed out the dependency theorists’ ‘centre/periphery’ distinction, but then again I don’t like this either. I like the poor/rich thing best actually - I think it’s generally what Chomsky uses. I think adding the qualifier ‘materially’ is hideously twee, since ‘poor’ and ‘rich’ both have predominantly material connotations and the attempt to claim poor people are, say, ’spiritually rich’ is both 1. hippie shit and 2. actually a justification for keeping them mired in (material) poverty.
Comment by mark — 3/23/2005 @ 3:43 am
What about when people use spiritual or othersuch measures to define their own experience?
Does it always have to be at the cost of down-playing and justifying dire poverty?
Comment by ann — 3/23/2005 @ 9:55 am
Bottle man doesn’t like pseudo-intellect.
Bottle man is from the 4th world.
Bottle man likes to talk in 3rd person..
Bottle man has 2 more sentences to go including this one.
Bottle man has 1 thing on his mind. Guess?
Comment by Bottle Man — 3/23/2005 @ 1:54 pm
Bottles? :-)
Comment by denim — 3/23/2005 @ 2:16 pm
you failed to say this was your 25th birthday - Mo-D
Comment by Anonymous — 4/3/2005 @ 2:02 pm