This book provides a new, more complex definition of Third Worldism by exploring the dynamic collaborations between Europe and the Global South in response to colonialism. It focuses on how transnational initiatives surpassed Eurocentric limitations, highlighting Europe's role in decolonization efforts and the Global South's anti-colonial activism within European territories. By doing so, the book reveals how the Global South became central to new understandings of decolonial modes.
The volume critically addresses contemporary decolonial debates, tracing the history of Third Worldism and its leftist and Catholic roots in Europe. It sheds light on key themes such as the architectural embodiment of cooperation, Ghana's alternative economic projects, and non-Western epistemologies. By reframing the debate on Third Worldism, this book adds to the academic discourse, offering fresh perspectives on the solidarity and cooperation between the Global North and South. It will appeal to students, researchers, and scholars of international relations, political science, law, and history and an audience interested in a better understanding of Third Worldism and the connected historical and contemporary political landscapes.
Chapter
1. Third-Worldism and the Afterlives of Empires.
Chapter
2.
History of the transnational connections between Europe and the Third World
through the Organisation of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and
Latin America (OSPAAAL) and Tricontinental (1966-1990).
Chapter
3.
Envisioning a Third Worldist Future: Kéba Mbaye, the Nigeria-Biafra War, and
Right to Development, 1968-1972.
Chapter
4. Il volto e lanima del Terzo
Mondo: Catholic Allegiances and Marxist Ideologies in the Film Cultural
Policies of the Istituto Columbianum (1958-1965).
Chapter
5. Writing on the
anticolonial border: notes on Cultura (Luanda), Mensagem (Lisbon) and
Imbondeiro (Lubango).
Chapter
6. Universal Regionalisms: Continental Visions
of Third-Worldism in Bogotá (1948) and Addis Ababa (1963).
Chapter
7. The
United Nations and the Bodily Limitations of Third Worldism, 1950s-1970s.-
Chapter
8. Conclusions: Rethinking Third Worldism Across Spaces,
Institutions, and Ideologies.
Giusi Russo is an associate professor of History at Montgomery County Community College in the greater Philadelphia area. Her research focuses on the relationship between the Italian left and intersectionality, as well as the entanglements between bodies and European empires. She is the author of Women, Empires, and Body Politics at the United Nations, 19461975 (University of Nebraska Press, 2023) and has published extensively on the colonial history of the United Nations and the construction of colonial narratives. She is currently working on a book project under contract with Routledge, titled, The Aesthetics of Third-Worldism in Italy: Bodies, Spaces, and Oppression.
Marco Zoppi is an independent researcher. He holds a MA in African Studies (University of Copenhagen) and a PhD in Histories and Dynamics of Globalization (Roskilde University). His research focuses primarily on diaspora, migration and Euro-African relations. Zoppi is the author of about 50 publications in these fields. He is the editor of the volume Contested Heritage in Europe and Africa: Representation, Commemoration, and Memorialization of a Connected Past, published by Routledge in 2024.
