The World Is Your Oyster

1/Identities and exchanges

Over time, the world innovations and adaptation (with a fast development), lead people to know more cultures, and be more integrated to each other.

After this introduction we can argue what identities and exchanges are.

Globalization nowadays has been facilitated by social media, letting people connect with each other and grow their social life much easier than before. The intellectual and physical movements define today’s world. It also multiplies contacts and a global adaptation, ignoring geographical borders. Before, people lose all communication when someone leaves a country. Now, when someone leaves, there are plenty of social media and other virtual ways of communication to not lose contact. With the new technologies, geographical boundaries practically cease to exist, making the world more and more universal, and making us all more and more citizens of the world instead. The world has "borders" created by us, humans. We have to say, they are completely imaginary; We have all seen the maps where the different countries of the planet are distinguished, but those lines are completely non-existent. We are all different, and with these borders, every country makes a culture. Each country with its different culture makes people think that people who migrate are bad for their country, but they don’t think that we are all humans, and the borders are imaginary. The new technologies let people be more open to different cultures and let them see the world without borders.

2/ Public Space and private space

Our theme is public space and private space. Public space can be defined as a place where people are allowed to use and circulate without restriction. Private space is where only certain people are allowed in.

In this theme, we will study the various types of spaces, their influence in society and their transformation throughout history. 

Some main points would be how women have found a place in these areas throughout society. How they went from private space to public space. Same goes with the freedom of circulation and the education right.  

Some sub-themes could be: 

- Economic and cultural differences among the population 

- The evolution of women in spaces 

- Difference between public and private education 

- How and why can borders divide society?

3/Art and power

Power has always been supported by art, and its artists have often taken advantage of power too. It has been used in architecture to build institutional buildings. Religion has also an important place in art history. Art has been used as a counter power through literature, music, movies and many others for years. But it has also and mostly been used to serve power religiously, politically and economically. Art has evolved through the times and history and still keeps, nowadays, an important place in our society.

Examples: Propaganda, Press photography, demagoguery

4/ Citizenship and virtual world

The virtual world is a computer-based simulated environment which may be used by people around the world. Everyone can simultaneously explore, participate in activities, communicate with others, to educate yourself, even create a simulated world with avatars. Citizenship is being recognized under the law and borderlines and being a legal member of a state or a nation. From these terms, we can come up with these different themes.

Should we put more restricted laws on the internet?

•             Avoid identity theft

•             Fake news\manipulation of information, because everyone can write about fake information behind a screen. That's why we should care about every information seen on the internet.

•             Cyberbullying

- How relationships have evolved\changed by the internet in the last few years?

•             Social media, because everyone posts a "perfect life". They post what everyone wants to see.

•             Blogs\Forums

•             Social networks, because it is easier to find more contacts on the internet, and it is easier to expand your number.

5/ Fiction and Reality

What is the notion?

The notion deals with the relation of fiction and reality in different aspects of society. But first, what is fiction and reality?

Fiction is an invented world, history, situation, etc… created generally by an author or even ourselves. It's sometimes inspired by reality but it is impossible for it to exist. For example, Harry Potter is a fictional novel written by J.K. Rowling. It is a young man named Harry and throughout history they tell us his adventures of magic and sorcery.  In this case we can see that it is a story that has real events such as the death of Harry's parents which are things we see and hear in everyday life, but at the same time it is fictional because there are very unreal events like the fact that there is magic and spells that are things that don't happen in real life.

Reality, unlike fiction, is based on events or situations that happened in our daily lives. We think that fiction is created to escape reality or even to make it better. In this case we can give the example of the movie The Fault in Our Stars, because it is a drama movie totally based on real events, and talks about love, disease and things that many people in the world must face in their daily lives.

These two concepts have helped us through history to create models of society, real or fake. Fiction and reality are based on our culture and over centuries it has fed our collective imagination. We can see this in how religion has influenced history for centuries. One example is how the Bible or the Coran has influenced our culture with the creation of religions. And how fictional characters like Spiderman or batman have influenced our contemporary culture with the pop art or comics.

6/ Scientific innovation and responsibilities

This notion is about technological and scientific changes and how they face today's issues.

Some of those problems are climate change, the lack of biodiversity and natural resources, overpopulation and pollution.

So, to help the planet and deal with these concerns, humans are making political campaigns, environmental protests, they are joining NGOs and participating in other forms of collaboration, that way imposing awareness.

Then scientists have offered, different methods of recycling, new genetic research (biotechnology), modern renewable energies (solar, wind, ...) and clever ways of consumption.

But the real question is, are those innovations a responsible way to resolve all our troubles?

7/ Diversity and Inclusion

First of all, what is diversity exactly? In a community, people with different characteristics and attributes. Inclusion is the capacity to accept everyone and integrate them in our daily life.

In a modern society, diversity is essential and it can be presented in different forms such as sexual orientation or sexual identity and genre, physical characteristics may it be skin color, physical appearance, disabilities caused by accidents, also your nationality, your culture and religion and last but not least your economic situation. All of these different elements form a diversified society. The inclusion of all individuals help this society to be built. This inclusion can be made through politics, pop culture, infrastructures or sports, also, the media is very helpful sometimes.

Some of the examples of inclusion in the modern world are:

Politics: equal representation of minorities not only in the government but also in the public sphere.

Pop culture: in the model industry, Winnie Harlow (pigmentation problem) and at the miss universe contest Angela Ponce, also for the social media movements of “embrace your body” and “Healthy beauty” with the purpose of breaking stereotypes.

At infrastructure: bathrooms for all genres, signs in different languages and infrastructures for disabled people.

And finally in sports: the attention given to women (world cup) and the games for disabled people.

8/Territory and Remembrance

The territory is a place defined by a border, it could be private or public. A memory is something you remember, it’s a recollection of things. If you combine territory and memory, it becomes an event you remember because it’s important and happened in a specific place which changed the course of history, like the assassination of Abraham Lincoln during the Reconstruction. Territory and remembrance can also be monuments dedicated to lost ones, memorials to people or even to events. Our duty is to remember history and its events like the assassination of JF Kennedy after proposing the civil rights legislation that would outlaw discrimination… Finally, we have to remember the ones who fought for our freedom, the war heroes that died for our country.