SPACES AND EXCHANGES

SPACES AND EXCHANGES

An exchange is when we give in return for something received – this can be anything from money, ideas, gifts, medical or financial aid. Trade, emigration, wars and disasters have influenced the world as we know it today. Our modern-day world is changing quickly and seems to be a smaller place due to improvements in communications and transport. Interactions and exchanges across the borders have become easier and faster. These different cultural, economic, sociological and language interactions have transformed and characterised our modern-day world – sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.

his notion is at the core of human societies and civilisations. Men were born on a territory and mobility is one of the crucial move which helped society evolve. The different groups on the planet developped differents ways and strategies to face life. Meeting new human groups contribute to discovering new technologies and forms of power to master the environment.

Modern societies were built after bloody conflicts and those who won the fights dominated the weakest. This is what Charles Darwin called « the survival of the fittest ». So contradictory forces of domination and resistance of oppression were under way. In the United States of America which is one of the youngest republic and the first superpower in the world we have many examples of conflicts between the Europeans and the Amerindians, the North and the South during the abolitionist period and Blacks and racist Whites in the 1960’s at the time of the Civil Rights movement.

So, it’s worth questioning the causes and ponder on the nature of these conflicts which shaped the american nation but also on the attempts to solve these difficulties and promote tolerance and friendship through cooperation

Through trade, conquest, emigration and communication, nations have always influenced others beyond their borders and have always been influenced, culturally, economically, politically or scientifically. Geographically, our world has never seemed smaller as transportation and telecommunications have accelerated the rhythm of exchanges. So, new forms of influence, new spaces – such as global cities – new forms of exchanges are emerging. Peoples and nations, thanks to this evolution, now keep on borrowing the languages and cultures of other peoples and nations at an ever increasing rate, thus deeply transforming our world. -Keep in touch with faraway relatives, get to know people, virtual life: perfect life, communication facilitated, asset for companies: communication, Job-search

-No self-censor, risky behaviours: photos comments, dangers: meeting with random people, bullying, abduction, kidnapping murders, fake exchanges and commercial aspects, identity usurpation, dangers for the professional life, social consequences: Addiction...

• Globalization / global cities: globalization of exchanges, free market, competition. Seamy sides: sweatshops, child labour, exploitation of peoples and resources.

• • Trips / Gap Year: taking a year-off to travel and getting involved in humanitarian causes in underprivileged countries.

• • Immigration/ The American Dream

• • The conquest of space……

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