Fourth world
The term fourth world denotes people who suffer from poverty and social exclusion. It was coined by Joseph Wresinski in France in 1969 and combines the terms Third World and Fourth Estate .
Over the years its focus has shifted. In the 1970s it served to draw public attention to the persistent poverty in the industrialized countries and to identify the disadvantaged population, also known as the "sub-proletariat", in its historical and sociological reality. In the manifesto Un peuple parle (1968), this population spoke out for the first time.
With the name Fourth World, those affected by poverty soon associated a new self-confidence and the movement in which they expressed themselves took it into their name: “Aide à tout détresse” (help in all need) became ATD Fourth World .
Since the 1980s, the name has been related to the people who, in rich as well as poor countries, were excluded from society due to their great poverty and who resisted it. Gradually its reach expanded to include all those who work for a world without misery and exclusion within the framework of the international ATD Fourth World movement . As a sociological category, however, it became unusable.
In another tradition that has developed in the English-speaking world, the Fourth World is a classifying summary of certain developing countries according to economic aspects, as distinct from the Third World . There were different types of classification:
- Countries that are much more dependent on oil sales than other developing countries were given the name.
- Countries that currently have no exportable raw materials and are therefore even poorer than the Third World are of another importance .
The concept of a fourth world is questionable insofar as it presupposes not only a “third world” but also a “ first world ” and a “ second world ”. The Second World was traditionally understood to be the so-called Eastern Bloc , which has ceased to exist since 1990 at the latest. The term Third World therefore appears to be extremely undifferentiated today, the term Fourth World even more so. Therefore, both terms are now used less often.
When Johan Galtung , the term Fourth World redefined. Together with the First World, he counts them among the MDC (more developed countries) and includes the East Asian market of the Buddhist-Confucianist countries Japan , China (together with Hong Kong and Taiwan ), South Korea , Thailand and Vietnam .
The term fourth world is increasingly being understood to include countries and societies that are economically, socially, technologically, etc., unable to implement the change to the information society. In this fourth world , the citizens of society do not have access to the increasingly important commodity information and are therefore excluded from other societies.
Occasionally one also finds the term "fifth world". This is used as a synonym for the Least Developed Countries , where the term Fourth World is used differently (e.g. for the OPEC countries or minorities in industrialized countries).
literature
- Marie-Rose Blunschi Ackermann: Joseph Wresinski. Spokesman for the poorest in theological discourse . Academic Press Friborg, Freiburg 2005, pp. 42–45, ISBN 3-7278-1535-3
- Léon Cassiers et al .: Histoire: De la honte à la fierté. Histoire du passage de la honte de la misère à la fierté d'appartenir à un peuple . In: Groupe de recherche Quart Monde - Université (ed.): Le croisement des savoirs. Quand le Quart Monde et l'université pensent ensemble . Les Editions de l'Atelier / Editions Ouvrières, Les Editions Quart Monde, Paris 1999, pp. 43–140, ISBN 2-7082-3420-X
- Louis Join-Lambert: Quart Moons . In: Encyclopédia Universalis, Universalia 1988 (1989), pp. 341-344
- Manuel Castells: The Information Age (Opladen 2004) Vol. III, Chap. 2, pp. 73-174