Fourth World - Coinage

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 what is considered important in a globalized and technologically connected world. There are many ways to attempt to bridge this "digital divide", such as proliferation of mobile phone services amongst populations previously without connectivity.