OXFORD, Miss. – A scholarly movement addressing the impact
of globalization on Southern societies around the world continues at
the University of Mississippi with the research journal The Global
South beginning its third year of publication.
The interdisciplinary journal, started in 2007 by faculty in UM’s
Department of English, is published once each semester by Indiana
University Press. It focuses on how world literatures and cultures
respond to globalization.
The journal’s editor, Adetayo
Alabi, UM associate professor of English who teaches courses in
Caribbean, African and African-American literatures, said the
university is the ideal locale for the journal’s headquarters.
“Being a major university in the South, we’re located where the
action is,” Alabi said. “Also, having the Center for the Study of
Southern Culture here on campus fits very well with what we do. The two
entities complement each other well.”
“Having The Global South (journal) here has helped put the
university at the center of an important scholarly movement that
studies the American South from multiple and transitional
perspectives,” said Ted Ownby, CSSC director. “Taking a global
perspective is part of a movement that involves new conferences, new
courses and new ways of teaching, along with some inspired and exciting
recent scholarship.”
Addressing such themes as the environment, poverty, immigration,
gender, race, hybridity, cultural formation and transformation,
colonialism and post-colonialism, and transatlantic encounters, the
journal has experienced rapid readership growth. Each peer-reviewed
volume logs approximately 1,700 subscribers to either its online or
print version.
“Since assuming sole editorship of The Global South, Professor
Alabi has kept the journal on the cutting edge of academic
scholarship,” said Ivo Kamps, UM chair and professor of English.
Other members of the journal’s staff include Assistant Professor
of English Sarah Lincoln, who serves as assistant editor, and graduate
assistant James Christopher O’Brien of Memphis, who works as an
editorial assistant.
Advisory editorial board members include faculty at the
University of New South Wales, University of London, University of
Macau, University of Nottingham, Delhi University, University of
Wollongong and University of Western Australia, as well as those at
several state and private universities in the United States.
Alabi said that from the North American South to the European
South, Latin and Central America, Africa, Asia and Australia, the
various Souths share comparable experiences that differentiate them
from mainstream cultures.
“Findings indicate that while expansion and trade are generally
beneficial for those living outside the South, those in the South don’t
always get the best of the pie,” he said.
For example, globalization directs mass production of items
manufactured by various industries, a change that usually causes the
production of materials indigenous to the local citizenry to
significantly dwindle, Alabi said. In another instance, the influx of
textiles from China into Nigeria has adversely affected that country’s
own textile industry.
“The research shows that many of the Souths have not had a
completely positive experience of globalization,” Alabi said. “While
they may not necessarily share a common wealth, they do intersect over
various issues of marginalization and inadequate access to means of
production and amenities under globalization.”
For more information, call Alabi at 662-915-6948 or visit http://inscribe.iupress.org/