Oral Anglais Espaces Et échanges

I am going to talk about the notion of spaces and exchanges. First i’d like to give you a definition of the notion: A society can be approached from the point of view of its cohesion and openness, which raises questions about its place in the world.

The geography of trade routes and networks of influence, but also the discovery and conquest of new land areas often goes beyond cultural borders.

The border as a boundary, a limit between two spaces is sometimes seen as a form of protection against the opening to the other, the stranger, the foreigner but also some kind of appeal to a larger space. This space can evolve and take varied symbolic shapes: loss of landmarks in cities worlds, invention of new trade models, creation of large regional real spaces as well as virtual spaces.

Today we see that despite a high level of inequality in development, the world has never been as integrated, as the relationships of any kind between peoples and countries have become closer. Exchanges of all kinds, "borrowing" from language to language, culture to culture in literature, the arts, science, technology, philosophy, religion, and political and social institutions more generally in everyday use, take a new dimension in the unification of spaces and peoples, languages and worldviews.

Each society is torn by conflicts between particular and universal values, which often overlap oppositions between tradition and modernity.

Among the whole of the propositions offered by the notion "spaces and exchanges", I chose to speak about Canadian aboriginals which leads me to my focus question: What do borders mean to aboriginals in Canada? To illustrate this I have chosen 3 documents: Life on the reserve, Citizenship and stop stealing our land. I have chosen these documents because they are a perfect example of aboriginal’s social and territorial situation nowadays in Canada and the United States.

The first document I have chosen is a film poster for the premiere of the film Life on the reserve by Graham Shonfield posted on Carleton University’s website on March 2011. This poster indicates that the documentary is about what life on a First Nation Reserve in Canada is really like.

Graham must have made this documentary to, in a way, help these people. During his period as a volunteer, Graham’s vision of the reserve completely changed as he was welcomed into their homes and was able to spend quality time with them. However, he explains the numerous issues that they have to face everyday, such as not having access to high schools forcing teenagers to leave the reserve but there are also problems regarding the quality of the water.

The poster makes us realize the issues of being attributed reserves as places to live. By analyzing this poster we can create a link between the notion and the issues due to the spaces attributed to the First Nations.

The second document linked to my focus question is an excerpt from One good story, that one (1993), by the Canadian author of Cherokee and European descent, Thomas King, called Citizenship. The excerpt deals with the problem of crossing American and Canadian borders as a Blackfoot. In the text the narrator and his mother are from the Canadian side of the Blackfoot territory and they have to cross the border to visit the narrator’s

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