Yes, those you have mentioned have certain negative connotations and "third world" is a grossly outdated cold war term.

The World Bank uses LIC/MIC/HIC, depending on the country's gross national income. I think these are useful objective terms.

http://data.worldbank.org/about/country-classifications

Now, we don't use third world, or poor countries but we use the terms mentionned by Nikola above. Unfortunately, economic ressources of a country is the only indicator to class them.... it is very questioning but do we have choice?

It depends on the subject of the study you're doing I'd say. If it's related to economy I don't see any reason not to use the World Bank terminology. For example, if I write a paper about public health and potential health interventions, it is more accurate to use the World Banl terminology, because these topics are very related to economic resources of a country. But, if you're studying art or culture, maybe other terms could be used to better describe or categorize countries.

You are all absolutely right that these terms are not to be used. But if you just do a google search on the number of papers which include the term "third world" in their title, you end up with a number close to 4000 just in 2014. Therefore, it seems that researchers' knowledge has not led to practice! What do you think about that?

Agree with all of you! We need a new system of classification that could include per capita income, social capital, population density, human development index etc etc,, and a cohort of other variables.

Totally agree with Daniel... That's the correct way to refer any country.... :-)

It is sad but true Prof. Bani-Hani...

First of all, we all should believe that there is only one world. Economy is always a strong parameter to classify the countries. It does not really matter, to what classification we belong. We must progress to reach the highest classification. In the current rend, people have to move in and out for exchange of knowledge and techniques. lalitha kabilan

First of all, we must all believe that there is only one world. Economy is the strong parameter used to classify the countries. It does not matter really, to which classification the country belongs to. we must orogress to reach the highest classification. In the present trend, people have to move in and out for exchange of knowledge, which is purely a business. We should not consider it as a brain drain. This is a suggestive of a development. lalitha kabilan.

I agree that there is only one world and all research across the globe is meant to help the human beings regardless of their ethnicity, race, country, etc. I am also a big fan of knowledge transfer and exchange across the world. However, by this discussion, I was trying to say that all researchers should be cautious about using hierarchical terms when addressing to countries of a lower income. I am wondering if we can come up with less subjective/sensitive terms.

Although North-South, East-West are now outdated, the least loaded terms might still be geographical: e.g. South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa. Occasionally "agricultural" - "industrial" may be appropriate.

I also struggle with what is the most appropriate terms to use that correctly reflect different countries' situations without being pejorative. The trouble for many older people is that the terminology of "Third World" was drummed into them during the Cold War to indicate non-aligned countries (First World = USA & allies, Second World = USSR & allies) and so it has become an unconscious reflex to use it.

I disagree with Jagdish that we need a new way of classifying countries. We already have too many and another will further add to the confusion. My preference is to use the World Bank HIC, MIC, LIC classification, with a fallback on "Developed" (HIC) and "Developing" (MIC/LIC) if I want to make a binary distinction. I agree with Susan that we should try to aim for geographical terms if appropriate. There may be a case to use "resource limited" if one is clear about what is the resource that is limited.

Agree with Ian Boulton (and others). The World Bank's criteria seems fine when discussing economic resources (or the lack thereof) as an overall summary of the nation or area. Equally, 'resource-poor' (or equivalent term) can also, without being demeaning, describe regions where the context is clear e.g. describing a lack of health infrastructure, poor availability of medicines etc.

For utmost clarity, I hark back to my journalism years. If you know the countries you are talking about, just name them. Generalisations will always falsify states and carry with them unintended but inferred connotations.

The idea of using exsiting concepts from one context for describing and conceptualizing a different context leads to misperceptions and misunderstandings and indicates, in a way, paternalism. Using exsiting concepts developed in particular context for a different context blocks the ability to understand reality. The intellectual as strategic challenge is to develop new concepts in context by deconstructing exsiting concepts and reconstructing them in the context and creating new and relevant concepts that assist in developing the rekevant konwoledge infrastructure.

In oreder to be able doing it we need cultural sensetivities and intellectual openness and to exept the fact that our political culture and values are not necessarily relevant and suitable for other societies and cultures.

If you have an interest in this topic I will be glad to provide you with some articles and texts I wrote regarding Cukltural Intelligence and awareness in peacekeeping and statebuilding operations.

All terminologies imply generalisations, and all generalisations are generally rubbish! The term,"third world", was meant to describe the third in terms of its fraction, not its position. Such is the ambiguity of the English language that this distinction became blurred. The term, "developing", was clearly a misnomer as many of these countries were for 20 years or more not developing at al, but rather stagnating. The term, "low-income",suggests an allegiance to a wholly biased American-Europocentric monetary system that measures GNP in US$ terms rather than real value. So no term is really adequate. The late Imre Loeffler preferred "post-colonial" which describes the majority, but unfortunately not all such countries. Perhaps "community-based" may be a challengic epithet, simply to suggest that the "rich" countries are caught in a spiral of individualistic ego-centrism - a gentle dig in the ribs at least to this effect!

However, the initial question suggests a different level of answer when considering widely used terminologies: how about "the ears of the hippo" instead of "the tip of the iceberg" ?

Agree with Michael Cotton, the terms are redundant. Combining countries like Nigeria, Mali, Malawi and Kenya in a group of LICs is grossly inaccurate. Geographical descriptions of countries or regions should be used instead...

Echoes of the rhetoric of 'development' here which preoccupied the debate in the 70's....when this terminology was much contested......resulting in some interesting reformulations.....underdevelop as an active verb for instance...as in I underdevelop you!

I moved to income banding in the 1990's and have stuck with 'low' 'middle' and 'high income' ever since. The comments about regions are well made but as virtually all data is estimated using nation states as units its hard to see us moving from this any time soon.

However the point made about generalisability is well made. The heterogeneity of populations within low income states is one of their defining features. Which reminds us that the whole concept of income banding country populations is misleading as income heterogeneity is extremely high.

As we grapple with the post 2015 agenda there is an emergent concensus to tackle this intra state population inequality which requires a language to describe the haves and have nots....which brings us back to the discussion above - are terms 'rich' and 'poor' too loaded?