Fourth World

For other uses, see Fourth World (disambiguation).

See also: Three Worlds Theory

The Fourth World refers to

1. sub-populations socially excluded from global society;
2. nomadic, pastoral, and hunter-gatherer peoples living beyond the modern industrial norm.
3. 4th World can also refer to sub populations, existing in a First World country, with the living standards of those of the Third World, or developing countries.

Etymology

Fourth World follows the First World, Second World, and Third World hierarchy of nation-state status; however, unlike the former categories, Fourth World is not spatially bounded, and is usually used to refer to populations whose size and shape does not map onto citizenship in a specific nation-state. It can denote nations without a sovereign state, emphasising the non-recognition and exclusion of ethnically- and religiously-defined peoples from the politico-economic world system, e.g. the Romani people worldwide, the Basque, Sami, pre-First World War Ashkenazi Jews in the Pale of Settlement, the Assyrians, and the Kurds in the Middle East, Pashtun throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan, the indigenous peoples of the Americas and First Nations groups throughout North, Central and South America, and indigenous Africans and Asians. Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells of the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication has made extensive use of the term fourth world'.

Coinage

The term originated with a remark by Mbuto Milando, first secretary of the Tanzanian High Commission, in conversation with George Manuel, Chief of the National Indian Brotherhood of Canada. Milando stated that "When Native peoples come into their own, on the basis of their own cultures and traditions, that will be the Fourth World."

Since publication of Manuel's The Fourth World: An Indian Reality (1974), the term Fourth World is synonymous with stateless, poor, and marginal nations. Since 1979, think tanks such as the Center for World Indigenous Studies have used the term in defining the relationships between ancient, tribal, and non-industrial nations and modern industrialised nation-states. With the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, communications and organizing amongst Fourth World peoples have accelerated in the form of international treaties between aboriginal nations for the purposes of trade, travel, and security.

Technologically speaking, Castells uses the term "Fourth World" to represent the people in regions that are bypassed by most forms of technology. These people reside both in urban and rural areas, and are viewed as structurally irrelevant in our society as they neither produce nor consume^{[citation needed]} what is considered important in a globalized and technologically connected world^{[citation needed]}. There are many ways to attempt to bridge this "digital divide", such as proliferation of mobile phone services amongst populations previously without connectivity.

See also

• Three Worlds Theory

Further reading

• Castells, Manuel (1998, second edition, 2000). End of Millenium, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture Vol. III. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0631221395. 

External links

• Fourth World Journal
• Fourth World Center for the Study of Indigenous Law and Politics at University of Colorado at Denver (on archive.org)
• Fourth World: Nations without a State - Nadesan Satyendra
• Fourth World Eye
• Fourth World Documentation Program