SPACES & EXCHANGES: A MIND MAP

SPACES & EXCHANGES: A MIND MAP

             This notion we will be studying Spaces and Exchanges. The mind map above puts in evidence what the notion is actually about. What you think might be the easiest to explain, Spaces is explained in two different ways. First Real Places, which is everything that is physical and concrete. Then, Virtual Spaces, more abstract but the spaces are still real that we come across every day. For Exchanges, we can also talk about physical exchanges and abstract ones. This just means that the first you can see it happening while the other can be happening while we don't see it concretely. 

For it to be more clear we can take examples to illustrate each part. Real spaces can be as easily defined as cities. In the mind map, global cities are mentioned as well as small towns. These are places that everyone knows exists and that we can see. On the other hand, we have Virtual Spaces, like web sites, social networking, or forums. These are places where people can go to, but not physically. In all these different places, people exchange.

Exchanges can also be physical, like international migration, brain drain even illegal trafficking (drugs, humans, arms..). These are things going from one space to another that are concrete and visible, like for example brain drain, is when all the educated brains from a third world country move to a first world country because the home country can´t give them the opportunities they could have in a developed country. As for virtual exchanges, text messages, e-commerce are good examples. Because we cannot see the information going from one place to another, it is still going through kilometers to reach another virtual space, whether it is just a simple text message to friend to thousands of dollars being exchanged. We are exchanging information from one place to another.