20th-century "Modern Masters" are artists who synthesised European modernism in the 1940s-1980s, merging Western styles (e.g. Cubism, Expressionism) with local motifs and anti-colonial themes (e.g. India's Bombay Progressive Artists' Group, Iraq's Baghdad Modern Art Group, Senegal's École de Dakar). They now dominate national canons, state collections, and major auction markets. Indigenous and vernacular artistic traditions are communal, regional, and customary art forms (e.g., indigenous textiles, carving) traditionally practiced outside metropolitan academies and historically marginalised as "craft" or "ethnographic artifacts".

Land lease systems are where the government retains ultimate ownership of all land, but private entities can purchase leases of land for fixed terms, with or without conditions attached. A freehold system allows private entities to purchase unconditional and permanent ownership of land.

Doomerism refers to a pessimistic outlook in which people believe that major societal problems are likely to worsen significantly and that existing efforts to address them are unlikely to succeed.