The Global South is a term that has been emerging in transnational and postcolonial studies to refer to what used to be called the "Third World" (i.e., countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America), "developing countries," "less developed countries," "less developed regions," and so on. It can also include poorer "southern" regions of wealthy "northern" countries. The first recorded use of the term was in 1996. It appeared in less than two dozen publications in 2004, but in hundreds of publications by 2013. The emergence of the term is the result of a complex historical and social process, "which illustrates how the term has been charged with various shades of meanings." Scholars generally agree that the term is not without its faults, nevertheless it is often looked at more favorably than its