Fourth World

The Fourth World is an extension of the Three-World Model, used variably to refer to

Fourth World follows the First World, Second World, and Third World classification of nation-state status; however, unlike the former categories, Fourth World is not spatially bounded, and is usually used to refer to size and shape which does not map onto citizenship in a specific nation-state. It can denote nations without a sovereign state, emphasising the non-recognition and exclusion of ethnically- and religiously-defined peoples from the politico-economic world system, e.g. the Romani people worldwide, the Sami, pre-First World War Ashkenazi Jews in the Pale of Settlement, the Assyrians, and the Kurds in the Middle East, Pashtun throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan, the indigenous peoples of the Americas and First Nations groups throughout North, Central and South America, indigenous Africans and Asians, as well as Aboriginal Australians, the Papuans of New Guinea and other islands of Melanesia, the Native Hawaiians, and the Māori people of New Zealand. Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells of the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication has made extensive use of the term fourth world.