scholarly journals The green revolution as a process of global circulation: plants, people and practices

Author(s):  
Jonathan Harwood ◽  

The “Green Revolution” (GR) is often portrayed as a humanitarian development programme in which crop varieties, cultivation practices and expertise were transferred essentially from global North to South. In this paper, however, I argue that this picture is seriously misleading for two reasons. First, it overlooks the significance of circulation between these regions. Several of the innovations central to the GR’s high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice, for example, originated in the global South before being taken up by northern breeders, while important practices and experts were transferred between countries within the global South. Moreover some of the approaches to increasing smallholder productivity which emerged from the 1970s can be traced to encounters between northern experts and southern farmers dating from the colonial period. In view of these patterns of circulation, the GR is more accurately depicted as a collective undertaking than as a “heroic” achievement of the North. Second, the tendency to represent the GR –and development aid more generally– as a “gift” from the benevolent North to the needy South ignores the very substantial economic gains which have accrued to northern agriculture and industry by virtue of GR research nominally intended to benefit the South.

Author(s):  
Doug Ashwell ◽  
Stephen M. Croucher

The Global South–North divide has been conceptualized in political, cultural, economic, and developmental terms. When conceptualizing this divide, issues of economic growth/progress, technology, political and press freedom, and industrialization have all been used as indicators to delineate between the “North” and the “South.” The North has traditionally been seen as more economically, technologically, politically, and socially developed, as well as more industrialized and having more press freedom, for example; the South has been linked with poverty, disease, political tyranny, and overall lack of development. This conceptualization privileges development efforts in the Global South based on democratic government, capitalist economic structures with their attendant neoliberal agenda and processes of globalization. This negative view of the South is a site of contest with people of the South offering alternative and more positive views of the situation in the South and alternatives to globalization strategies. While there may be some identifiable difference between some of the countries in the identified Global South and Global North, globalization (economic, political, technological, etc.) is changing how the very Global South–North divide is understood. To best understand the implications of this divide, and the inequalities that it perpetuates, we scrutinize the Global South, detailing the background of the term “Global South,” and examine the effect of globalization upon subaltern groups in the Global South. We also discuss how academic research using frameworks of the Global North can exacerbate the problems faced by subaltern groups rather than offer them alternative development trajectories by empowering such groups to represent themselves and their own development needs. The culture-centred approach to such research is offered as alternative to overcome such problems. The terms usage in the communication discipline is also explained and the complexity of the term and its future is explored.


2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie M. Hughes ◽  
Pamela Paxton ◽  
Sharon Quinsaat ◽  
Nicholas Reith

Over the last century, women increasingly transcended national boundaries to exchange information, build solidarity, and bring change. Accounts suggest that as women's international presence expanded, the types of women who participated also shifted. During the first wave of women's movements, White Western women dominated, but over time women of the Global South increasingly organized themselves. Yet we do not know whether North-South inequalities in women's organizational membership have diminished. We collect longitudinal network data on 447 women's international nongovernmental organizations (WINGOs) and use visual tools and network measures to explore changes in the network structure from 1978 to 2008. Results suggest (1) WINGOs—while increasing in frequency—are not connecting to greater numbers of countries, (2) the North/South split in WINGO memberships does not change over time, (3) significant power differences between the North and South persist, and (4) substantial inequalities in WINGO memberships within the Global South also exist.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Stewart

The ‘evidence for development’ community aims to produce research that is useful and used to address issues of poverty and inequality, largely in low- and middle-income countries (often referred to as the ‘global South’). The unspoken norm, however, is that much of the engagement, funding and attention is focused on organizations and individuals in the global North, with the assumption that they are effective in supporting the needs of the global South. In this research paper, I explore the initiatives and the individuals and organizations that are working within the ‘evidence for development’ community in Africa, using the lens of the African philosophy of ubuntu. I present findings from a programme of work undertaken across Africa to identify and better understand the innovation in evidence-informed decision-making taking place across the continent. I demonstrate that, while resource-poor and not well publicized, the evidence community in Africa is world leading in a number of respects. These include the interconnections within its continent-wide network, and the engagement of some governments within its ecosystem. Reflecting on these findings, I discuss and critique the underlying foundations of patriarchy, development and coloniality that shape the field of ‘evidence for development’. I highlight how, in an era of decoloniality, post-‘development’ and antipatriarchy, the ‘evidence for development’ community risks becoming outdated and being ineffective if it does not engage with the challenges inherent within these concepts. I argue that using the alternative lens of ubuntu enables us to celebrate the successes of Southern evidence communities, and to work together on a level footing with the North to tackle the challenges of poverty and inequality through better use of evidence.


Author(s):  
Marcelo Afonso Ribeiro

The career development field has produced theories from the Global North that have been imported and applied in the Global South countries. These theories were developed in different socioeconomic and cultural contexts than those of the Global South, which can generally be characterized by vulnerability and instability. Theories and practices must be contextualized if they are to be of assistance to the users of career development services. This chapter has two aims. First, by means of an intercultural dialogue proposal, it discusses the need to contextualize theories to assist people with their career issues and foster social justice. Second, it presents career theories and practices produced in the Global South (Latin America, Africa, and developing countries of Asia) and discusses their potential as an alternative to expand the mainstream career development theories from the North. Such theories can be understood as a Southern contribution to the social justice agenda.


1991 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-160
Author(s):  
Carl E. Brunner ◽  

As a result of the Green Revolution, modem agriculture in the industrialized world has developed into a monocultural system. Through intensive breeding practices, most food crops grown in the developed nations have a narrow genetic base and are increasingly susceptible to disease and environmental changes. The genetic sources of eroded genes are found in the traditional crop varieties of the Third World However, these traditional, home-grown varieties have been abandoned in favor of the high yielding varieties of the Green Revolution. Analysis of world cereal and food crop production data reveals that the world is food crop interdependent. The essay concludes that in order to assure adequate food supplies, food crop germplasm needs to be conserved.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Quark ◽  
Kristen Hopewell ◽  
Elias Alsbergas

Abstract Existing research emphasizes the rise of new coalitions of states from the global South, such as the BRICS, on one hand, and the rise of a transnational capitalist class on the other. Yet only a small body of work has considered how transnational capitalists shape, and are shaped by, inter-state competition. Research neglects explicitly comparative inquiries: do transnational capitalists in the global North and the global South interact with inter-state competition differently? This article analyzes two cases in which transnational firms in the global North and South attempted to shape state institutions at domestic and international levels to strengthen trade liberalization. We argue that, while firms in the global North and South increasingly share preferences for trade liberalization, the way in which these firms pursue that goal is shaped by their historical relationship to the institutions of U.S.-led hegemony. Transnational firms in the global South seek to foment inter-state competition in order to decenter U.S. leadership, while their counterparts in the North seek to minimize and accommodate inter-state competition to preserve U.S. leadership and their own private authority. Both the North and the South are contributing to the geographical re-centering of institutional power in the world economy.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-292
Author(s):  
Matthew R. Sanderson

This paper empirically assesses, for the first time, the relationship between immigration and national economic development in both the global North and the global South. A series of panel models demonstrate that immigration exacerbates North-South inequalities through differential effects on average per capita incomes in the global North and global South. Immigration has positive effects on average incomes in both the North and the South, but the effect is larger in the global North. Thus the relationship between immigration and development evinces a Matthew Effect at the world level: by contributing to differential levels of economic development in the North and South, immigration widens international inequalities in the long term, resulting in the accumulation of advantage in the North. The implications of the results are discussed in the context theory and policy on the migration-development nexus.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosalind V. Gunn

This analysis examines the intersections of migration and neoliberal immigration policy in Canada through a political economy lens. It looks particularly at the increasing phenomenon of human smuggling and it asks how the emergence of neoliberalism has shaped Canadian immigration policy and how has this impacted working peoples’ lives and forced them to become migrants. Canada increasingly treats migrants with suspicion and seeks to prevent the less “profitable” ones from entering. Today’s policies are the result of a historical process of entrenching a North-South divide as some sort of unavoidable truth, and the fruits of the global North as requiring protection from “needy” and “lazy” poor in the global South. It is this paradigm which the following analysis seeks to problematize and deconstruct by examining the historical roots of the North-South divide.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniele Tubino de Souza ◽  
Pedro Henrique Campello Torres

The design and deployment of green amenities is a way to tackle cities' socio-environmental problems in the quest for urban sustainability. In this study, we undertake a systematic review of research published in international peer-reviewed journals that analyzes environmental justice issues within the context of the deployment of urban green amenities. Since most studies focus on the Global North, where this scholarship first emerged, our goal is to link the literature focused on the North and the South. This study aims to outline similarities and differences regarding the nexus of justice and the greening of cities in both contexts as well as to identify knowledge gaps in this scholarship in the Global South. “Green infrastructure” and “nature-based solutions,” as the leading concepts for cities' greening agendas, are used as descriptors in combination with “justice” and/or “green gentrification” in searches undertaken of two bibliographic databases. Our results show there is a need to better delineate a research agenda that addresses such issues in a heterogeneous Global South context while gaining insights from advances made by research on the Global North.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosalind V. Gunn

This analysis examines the intersections of migration and neoliberal immigration policy in Canada through a political economy lens. It looks particularly at the increasing phenomenon of human smuggling and it asks how the emergence of neoliberalism has shaped Canadian immigration policy and how has this impacted working peoples’ lives and forced them to become migrants. Canada increasingly treats migrants with suspicion and seeks to prevent the less “profitable” ones from entering. Today’s policies are the result of a historical process of entrenching a North-South divide as some sort of unavoidable truth, and the fruits of the global North as requiring protection from “needy” and “lazy” poor in the global South. It is this paradigm which the following analysis seeks to problematize and deconstruct by examining the historical roots of the North-South divide.


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