Spaces and Exchanges

SPACE AND EXCHANGES

All societies are somehow defined by the geographical and symbolic spaces they occupy and how they open up these spaces to what lies farther away. Through trade, conquest, emigration and communication, nations have always influenced others beyond their borders and have always been influenced culturally, economically, politically or scientifically… Thus, we can define an exchange as an act of giving and receiving something else in return. However, in today’s society these exchanges can take several forms. Indeed, they can be separated into different categories: the economic one including work exchanges, exchange of goods, trading across borders, the cultural one such as exchange of ideas, information, education,  movement of people, immigration, student exchanges, gap years and others…  
How can a gap year transform society and the one who takes it ?  

A gap year is a period of time when students break from formal education to do something else such as gain work experience, travel, and volunteer abroad… The concept was born in the United Kingdom and, since the 1990s, taking time out has become increasingly popular with students all around the world. More and more young people from diverse backgrounds are taking a gap year and it’s not the prerogative of affluent middle-classes anymore. Indeed, inequalities are unfortunately still rough and too many people can’t afford to take a gap year. That’s why, as said in the TV program taken from BBC news broadcasted in 2009, the government is to pay for graduates struggling to get a job to go on trips abroad. Indeed the State wants to develop “the communication and leadership skills that are so highly valued in the workplace” among young people.
We studied the case of Fiona, a young girl who wants to rush to Kenya to commit herself. Her gap year is counted in a novel entitled The Camel Bookmobile, written by Masha Hamilton and published in 2007. Her blueprint is to bring to Kenyan children books in order to curb the illiteracy rate. By committing herself, she wants to break out of her root, discover other ways of living and broaden her horizons. No matter how chaotic and violent Kenya is. One may think that in the Western World, there are some people who suffer from illiteracy and that Charity begins at home but Fiona is convinced that unlike the Kenyans, the Americans do have a library. Indeed she wants to bridge the gap between Kenya and developed countries.

As a conclusion I would say that the gap year is well-illustrating the notion of spaces and exchanges as it enables cultural and human exchange with a population evolving in a country whose habits and customs are different, so in another “space”.  
In pairs, we had to set out a gap year’s blueprint to our classmates. Indeed we had to choose a destination, explain our motivations, how we could pay for the flight, the length of time we would stay there and of course, what we would have to do in our host country.
Each project had to be given the green light.

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