The Southern Question in Post-War Internationalism

Keywords: imperialism, gramsci, third world
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

The second half of the twentieth century was witness to the political decolonization of former European colonies across Asia and Africa and, simultaneously, a surge of anti-imperialist internationalism in these continents and in Latin America. These developments took place alongside the establishment of a post-war order with a political, financial, and legal center of gravity in the United States. This paper examines some debates and analyses within important Third Worldist organizations and institutions, such as the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organization and the Tricontinental, in the period between the 1960s and 1980s, on the question of the mechanics of economic independence from the Western world and from the development and financial institutions that represented the latter’s interests. Particular attention is paid to the centrality of agrarian political economy and food sovereignty in anti-imperialist thought, practice, and planning, a guiding question being: what can these anti-imperialist engagements with the agrarian question tell us about the faultlines of the capitalist world system during/after the political decolonization of much of Asia and Africa? Examining these debates, which constituted an anti-imperialist political economy, alongside Gramsci’s work on the Southern question and subalternity, I will discuss the continued relevance of the twin contradictions between workers and peasants on the one hand, and between the global North and South on the other.