ABSTRACT
Although processes of terminological creation in relation to the world’s worlds currently appear to have a weaker dynamic than in the past, new designations for the underdeveloped countries continue to be generated. The new terms do not, however, refer primarily to these countries as a whole but rather its subgroups (it is worth underlining again that this group of countries has always attracted most creative energy in terms of terminological formation). One of the most recent spatial concepts to have entered the language of global development is the rather imprecise category of ‘emerging markets’ (abbreviated to ‘EMs’), which also takes the form of ‘emerging economies’ or ‘emerging/emergent countries’. It was created in the 1980s in the World Bank and soon, by the early 1990s, began to be routinely used by fund managers, traders and the financial media (Sidaway 2012). It was authored by Antoine van Agtmael in 1981 while working as an investment officer for the International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank. Van Agtmael recounts that at that time, he was attempting to organize a ‘Third-World Equity Fund’, which was to invest in developing country shares, but was not able to raise sufficient investment because, as he suggests, the expression ‘Third World’ in the fund name, with its associations of stagnation, had the effect of scaring off investors. Then he came up with the idea of a new category – ‘emerging markets’ – which was more positive, stimulating and suggestive of ‘progress, uplift and dynamism’ (Acronyms 2008; van Agtmael 2012). However, van Agtmael does not, in fact, seem to have been the ultimate originator of this category (even if in 1981 it was his independent creation), as the designation ‘emergent territories’ was already known in the mid-1960s and considered to be a synonym for ‘developing countries’ (Moyes and Hayter 1965).
