WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT GSN?
GSN started its journey on 17 March 2023. The GSN consists of academics (including staff and students from different schools and colleges of universities across the globe) and actors outside academia. It is aimed at empowering people from, or focusing on, the Global South. As of today, it is the only international interdisciplinary network led by an early career academic that organised around 70 knowledge exchange activities (including 4 international hybrid conferences, around 55 high quality online PhD in Progress weekly panel-discussion seminars, 12 guest lectures of supreme court judges from different countries), created a team of conveners, established an interdisciplinary advisory committee, activated the website and YouTube channel, created editorial board of GSN blogs, organised thematic (including Business )and geographic groups within GSN, launched GSN mentoring, completed two edited collections on judicial independence, and created opportunities of public engagement for academics from all backgrounds just over a year of the network’s launch. The social, political, economic, and legal issues of the Global South received due attention.
GSN is the world’s only interdisciplinary international network that is of and by the Global South but for both the Global South and the Global North and made an unparalleled contribution to equality, diversity and inclusion by hosting the guest talks of judges of both the Supreme Constitutional Court of Palestine and the Supreme Court of Israel during the peak of the Middle East crisis. 70% of participants during the GSN activities since its launch in March 2023 were females.
What is the Global South (GSN)?
The concept of the Global South is highly contested and often compared to other terms such as ‘the Third World,’ ‘the Majority World,’ ‘developing countries,’ and ‘low- or middle-income countries.’ I chose this title for my network purely for ease of understanding, without limiting it to countries classified by international organizations or academics as ‘the Global South.’ My use of the term refers to countries that share non-Western perspectives and challenges, such as low- and middle-income economies, unstable political regimes, and deteriorating law and order.
In this sense, I do not view the Global South as a geographical area or a group defined by economic, social, ethnic, or political identities. Instead, I see it as a concept, a worldview focused on empowering different types of minorities by offering them a safe, judgment-free space for knowledge exchange, while bridging the gap between minorities and majorities. While I acknowledge that this understanding is not perfect, I see it as a starting point. Let’s explore and deconstruct it further, on our own terms, through the Global South Network (GSN).
Why GSN?
Whether it’s the Russia-Ukraine War, the War on Terror, or the Responsibility to Protect, these global issues disproportionately impact the Global South, exacerbating violence, inequality, extremism, and instability. Yet, much of the knowledge about the Global South is produced in and for the Global North. Furthermore, the challenges faced by the Global South are often rooted in a complex combination of social, political, historical, and legal factors. However, interdisciplinary studies on these issues remain limited.
While there is considerable literature on the Global South, there is no dedicated forum that brings together practitioners, civil society members, judges, policymakers, and academics to focus on these interdisciplinary challenges. The Global South Network (GSN) fills this gap by providing a platform that unites academics, policymakers, judges, journalists, civil society, and researchers—including postgraduate students—working on or studying interdisciplinary issues in the Global South. GSN seeks to promote interdisciplinary research and foster international collaboration among these groups
GSN shares an interest in general issues of the Global South with similar networks at other universities and organizations outside academia. However, it extends this focus by comparing socio-political and politico-legal issues within the Global South, promoting knowledge exchange, sharing good practices both within the Global South and between the Global South and the Global North, and engaging with actors outside academia.
While GSN has overlapping interests with interdisciplinary institutions and centers that focus on developments in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, it adds a new dimension by exploring politico-legal, geopolitical, and socio-political issues in the non-Western countries of the Global South.
The geographical chapters of GSN go beyond focusing regions to promote South-South cooperation by providing members with an opportunity to organise interdisciplinary and comparative collaboration on shared social, political, and economic challenges of different regions.
GSN vision
The vision of GSN is to empower individuals from, or focusing on, the Global South—referred to here as “Global Southerners.” What does empowerment mean in this context? Consider a football game: there are two key roles, players and spectators. By empowerment, I mean enabling Global Southerners to become players, not just spectators. They should have the authority to define how their cultures, civilizations, histories, institutions, and politics are understood—on their own terms. Rather than simply consuming knowledge about their regions, they should lead the process of its production. While I recognize this is a long-term endeavor, establishing GSN marks the first step toward achieving this goal.
“PLAYERS, NOT SPECTATORS”
-Dr Nauman Reayat, Convener GSN.
I aim to achieve this empowerment by decolonizing knowledge about the Global South. Currently, I believe knowledge about the Global South is controlled by certain individuals, groups, and organizations beyond the region’s influence. By “colonization of knowledge,” I mean control over the production, projection, and dissemination of knowledge. Decolonization, however, is not simply about including studies by scholars from the Global South in various fields. Instead, it involves transferring the power to produce, project, and disseminate knowledge about the Global South from the Global North to those living in, or originating from, the Global South. This transfer of power is key to empowering people from, or focused on, the Global South. Promoting knowledge exchange and sharing good practices on Global South issues are steps toward achieving this empowerment.
How can we decolonize knowledge about the Global South? I aim to achieve this through GSN. GSN offers scholars focusing on Global South issues a dedicated interdisciplinary forum where they can exchange knowledge and share best practices on a range of topics (e.g., the politics of human rights, rule by law, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ governance, civil dispute resolution, political economy, women’s empowerment, etc.).
In the long term, GSN seeks to contribute to internationalization by fostering partnerships with higher education institutions in the Global South. It also aims to promote diversity by increasing the recruitment of postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers, exchange students, policymakers, civil society representatives, practitioners, and visiting researchers from the Global South.
In summary, decolonisation is not an end in itself. It is a means to achieve other ends. What are those ends? One of those ends is the empowerment (discussed above). I personally believe decolonisation without empowerment is meaningless. Without empowerment, decolonisation sounds more like a hollow slogan or a melodious song that could entertain people but can’t heal their wounds.
“Decolonisation is not an end in itself. It is a means to achieve other ends”
— Dr Nauman Reayat, Convener/Founder GSN
Our commitment
I, along with this network, am committed to empowering people from, or focused on, the Global South through knowledge exchange and the sharing of best practices on Global South issues. If you share this commitment or are interested in fostering South-South or North-South cooperation, GSN is the ideal platform for you.
GLOBAL SOUTH NETWORK (GSN) 