Geographies of the Global South and the hemispheric scale

Abstract

This commentary engages with contemporary interpretations of the Global South in relation to the hemispheric scale in critical human geography. I am particularly interested in contributing to conversations on how the Global North/South divide can be untangled and challenged through a critical re-imagining of the hemispheric scale within the Latin American context. With this in mind, I ask: how does the term ‘Global South’ relate to existing decolonial imaginations that go beyond the nation-state? And, more specifically, how does the ‘Global South’ enframe the world vis-a-vis the geographical imaginaries of Abya Yala and Améfrica Ladina, which have their roots in Indigenous and Black understandings of the Americas and are being used to directly question colonial understandings of this world region? I argue that the hemispheric scale in this context can be re-imagined as a place from which continuous interconnections between existing decolonial imaginaries can occur.