This panel focusses on the concept of a ‘new’ Global North through a justice-based approach to international development. Inspired by calls to contextualise the term ‘Global South’ and situate it within relations of power (Sud and Sánchez-Ancochea, 2022), this panel invites a complementary interrogation of the ‘Global North’, thereby troubling the binary between the two. Specifically, we ask: How can a ‘new’ Global North (if one exists) be conceptually, spatially and materially defined, considering current geopolitical, economic and social shifts, and what are the implications for achieving justice, whether in terms of migration, sustainability, employment, health, or other issues in (international) development agendas? 

This panel is organised by the EADI working group Just Development. We are seeking contributions that theoretically and empirically investigate the idea of the ‘new North’. We aim to cast a critical lens on the multiple meanings of the ‘North’, challenging the persistent association of development with certain regions and parts of the world. We will move beyond critiquing legacies of colonialism (while still acknowledging their continuing relevance), or dependence-oriented approaches, to chart how the North is changing in complex and nuanced ways, and why this matters for disentangling, deepening, and proposing new pathways for just development. Our goal is not to ‘centre’ the North, but to uncover relational dynamics that shape international development. 

 Possible topics include:

How the current world order (such as shifts in US development policy) is challenging ‘traditional’ positions in development 

How flows between places (including between the ‘Global South’ and ‘North’, and new South-to-South flows) shape development 

Research from the ‘South’ that helps (re)define the ‘North’ 

Transnational development funding and its role in creating a ‘Northern identity’ 

How researchers based in the Global North position themselves within development studies (and in relation to their 'Southern' counterparts) 

Approaches to partnerships, collaborations, and co-production within and across Global North/South divides 

Attacks against the development sector and their implications for conceptualising ‘Northern’ and ‘Southern’ locations

*This panel is organised by the EADI Working Group on "Just Development"