POST 15: INDIVIDUAL DOCUMENT AS ILLUSTRATION OF 'SPACES & EXCHANGES' NOTION

INDIVIDUAL DOCUMENT AS ILLUSTRATION OF "SPACES AND EXCHANGES" NOTION

These two documents are posters from the Netflix original series Narcos that is related to the "Spaces and Exchanges" notion. The series is set and filmed in Colombia, seasons one and two are based on the story of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, who became a billionaire through the production and distribution of cocaine in the world, while also focusing on Escobar's interactions with drug lords, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents, and various opposition entities. Season three picks up after the fall of Escobar and continues to follow the DEA as they go up against the rise of the infamous Cali Cartel. 

The first poster presents the 3rd season of the series, in which we can see   (from left to right) cocaine, a bullet and money($), those are the three main elements exchanged. In Narcos the different drug lords have established a network to exchange cocaine for money. This phenomenon is illegal as it is drug trade as it involves underground economy, money laundering and tax havens. Drug traffic also implies dangerous consequences for public health, that is why drug possession and drug trade is prohibited in the world. Between these two elements there is a bullet representing arms trafficking and death. Drug trafficking is an extremely dangerous phenomenon as at the end of the day it involves dealing with mafia and threats, exchanging money for lives. There is a clear distinction between the normal world and this illegal world full of violence, where drugs are better valued than peoples lives. 

The second poster deals with the same topics, a background of a dollar($) with the face of President George Washington with a bleeding nose. There is also some cocaine in the corner of the picture. This poster represents the same idea but it insists with the importance of the USA in the fight against Colombian drug trade, as most of the cocaine was sold in Miami. We may suppose that the bleeding nose represents the violence and the pain that cocaine has caused in the USA, as drugs destroy lives. Those kind of traffickings also involve human trade such as prostitution and women sexual exploitation.

These two posters summarize very clearly the kind of exchanges made in Colombia during the fight against drug lords and cartels, even if this fight still exists nowadays. The series Narcos embodies many of the drawbacks of exchanges in the world thanks to the phenomenon of globalization.