In Search of the Global East: Thinking between North and South

TLDR

Since the end of the Cold War, global difference has been framed by a binary of Global North and Global South, but conceptualizing a Global East as a liminal space complicates and expands these categories toward more inclusive yet uncertain theorizing. The paper argues that the North–South binary erases the Global East, a liminal region excluded from both geopolitics of knowledge and broader notions of globality, and calls for a strategic essentialism to recover it for scholarship. The authors trace the global relations of IKEA’s bevelled drinking glass to illustrate how the Global East sits at the heart of global connections and why it must be rethought. The case study demonstrates that the Global East is central to global connections, underscoring the urgency of rethinking it.

Abstract

Carving up the world into Global North and Global South has become an established way of thinking about global difference since the end of the Cold War. This binary, however, erases what this paper calls the Global East - those countries and societies that occupy an interstitial position between North and South. This paper problematises the geopolitics of knowledge that has resulted in the exclusion of the Global East, not just from the Global North and South, but from notions of globality in general. It argues that we need to adopt a strategic essentialism to recover the Global East for scholarship. To that end, it traces the global relations of IKEA's bevelled drinking glass to demonstrate the urgency of rethinking the Global East at the heart of global connections, rather than separate from them. Thinking of such a Global East as a liminal space complicates the notions of North and South towards more inclusive but also more uncertain theorising.