The originality of this interdisciplinary paper is to make existing research on North-South development on the one hand and the growing importance and universality of the territory concept on the other hand converge. The author formulates this approach on the basis of a fertile error" pedagogy built in opposition to a model of development limited to developing countries. This pedagogy highlights the importance of the anthropological anchoring of economic practices (including individual behavior, business management, and local practices). By doing so, it illustrates the formal vs. informal paradox in developmental economy and the local vs. global paradox in North-South relations. As a result, the paradigm of symbolic sites of belonging the author defends opens the way to a scientific revolution that may solves anomalies in the standard model dealing with development, entrepreneurship, and globalization. The need to take into account the vast situational diversity and the actors’ shared beliefs plays a key role in complex systems, including in territories, firms, companies, small and medium sized firms, and informal economic activities.