Synthèse spaces and exchanges

I picked the notion Spaces and Exchanges. In class, this year, we studied the topic of travelling to illustrate this notion. Nowadays, more and more people are traveling around the world. Nevertheless, people travel for different reasons. So, we will wonder what difference there is between a tourist and a traveller. For that I will talk about tourists, then travelers and then I will compare them. I’m going to show that traveling encourages exchanges.

I have chosen 3 documents to deal with the notion of Spaces and Exchanges.

My first document is Slum Tourism in Rio de Janeiro and Mumbai, it's a report about slum tourism in Rio. A group of tourists is visiting a shanty town in Rio. They have already seen famous places as the Statue of Christ. The excursion costs 40 euros a piece and the favela supposed to be safe. They expect to see extreme poverty, people living in poor conditions but also cell phones, scooters. In fact they discover the slum is thriving and very busy. The tourist are stunned. They are glad to see poverty. They say it is beautiful. Just a few years ago, taking pictures was life-threatening. So the favela used to be hazardous. Now, it's not unsafe anymore. The favela is peaceful and secure now. Armed drug dealers used to rule the streets. The tourists say it is an enriching experience they see the reality of slums which is different from what they expected. They recommend the tour. The local people like to see tourists. They want to show they are marvellous people. Slum tourism allows tourists to exchange with local people and to discover their life and living conditions.

My second document is an article from Newsweek. It’s about volunteer vacations or working vacations. Instead of tanning, staying in a hotel and relaxing you go working in a foreign country and you can go sightseeing. For example, Nancy Reid go in Guatemala for 2 weeks for renovating a school. You have to pay for food and lodging. It lasts from a week to several months. It's deeper than other experiences as a tourist. If you work, you can have a real connection with the people and you can also tour the country. So this sort of vacation allows a deeper connection and deeper exchanges with people.

My third document is the video Tourist or Traveller, thanks to it, we will be able to compare the two with the testimonies of different people. The tourists are described as are always tired, they live a very regimented life, they are out of break, they are always behind schedule, they are not the bus driver of their life because their journey is taken care by somebody, they have safe life. While the travellers, they love to be impacted and influenced, they love to sit in a town square and that park of life, a traveller is engaged and connected to the life and the community, they don’t let somebody else control their journey, they are their bus driver, the love to travel, take risk and experience new things.

To conclude, we will say that tourists are more people who take vacations to rest, change of air, they plan everything, they go from destination to destination only to visit and for their general culture whereas the travelers are more open-minded, they like to travel but especially to discover new cultures, new people and not only to visit. There are more and deeper exchanges when you are a traveler but this type of exchanges raise a question is it real exchanges, sincere or voyeurism?

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