Beyond the Third World: imperial globality, global coloniality and anti-globalisation social movements

TLDR

Modern problems lack modern solutions, prompting a move beyond modernity and the Third World toward a post‑Third‑World vision that confronts imperial globality and its coloniality, while self‑organizing social movements begin to counter‑hegemonic globalisation. The paper argues that place‑based, transnational social movements engaging politics of difference offer the best hope to rework imperial globality and global coloniality, making a post‑Third‑World future viable.

Abstract

The increasing realisation that there are modern problems for which there are no modern solutions points towards the need to move beyond the paradigm of modernity and, hence, beyond the Third World. Imagining after the Third World takes place against the backdrop of two major processes: first, the rise of a new US-based form of imperial globality, an economic–military– ideological order that subordinates regions, peoples and economies world-wide. Imperial globality has its underside in what could be called, following a group of Latin American researchers, global coloniality, meaning by this the heightened marginalisation and suppression of the knowledge and culture of subaltern groups. The second social process is the emergence of self-organising social movement networks, which operate under a new logic, fostering forms of counter-hegemonic globalisation. It is argued that, to the extent that they engage with the politics of difference, particularly through place-based yet transnationalised political strategies, these movements represent the best hope for reworking imperial globality and global coloniality in ways that make imagining after the Third World, and beyond modernity, a viable project.