Heterotopia (from Greek ἕτερος, héteros 'different, other, distinct' and Greek τόπος, tópos 'place') is a concept elaborated by the philosopher Michel Foucault to describe certain cultural, institutional and discursive spaces that are somehow "other": disturbing, intense, incompatible, contradictory or transforming. Heterotopias are "worlds within worlds": both similar to their surroundings, and contrasting with or upsetting them. Foucault provides examples: ships, cemeteries, bars, brothels, prisons, gardens of antiquity, fairs, Muslim baths and many more. Foucault outlines the notion of heterotopia on three occasions between 1966 and 1967. A lecture given by Foucault to a group of architects in 1967 is the most well-known explanation of the term. His first mention of the concept is in his preface to The Order of Things, and refers to texts rather than socio-cultural spaces.
Etymology Heterotopia follows the template established by the notions of utopia and dystopia. The prefix hetero- is from Ancient Greek ἕτερος (héteros, 'other, another, different') and is combined with the Greek morpheme τόπος (topos) and means 'place'. A utopia is an idea or an image that is not real but represents a perfected version of society, such as Thomas More's book or Le Corbusier's drawings. As Walter Russell Mead has written, "Utopia is a place where everything is good; dystopia is a place where everything is bad; heterotopia is where things are different—that is, a collection whose members have few or no intelligible connections with one another."
In Foucault Foucault uses the term heterotopia (French: hétérotopie) to describe spaces that have more layers of meaning or relationships to other places than immediately meet the eye. In general, a heterotopia is a physical representation or approximation of a utopia, or a parallel space (such as a prison) that contains undesirable bodies to make a real utopian space possible. Foucault explains the link between utopias and heterotopias using the example of a mirror. A mirror is a utopia because the image reflected is a "placeless place", an unreal virtual place that allows one to see one's own visibility. However, the mirror is also a heterotopia, in that it is a real object. The heterotopia of the mirror is at once absolutely real, relating with the real space surrounding it, and absolutely unreal, creating a virtual image. Foucault articulates several possible types of heterotopia or spaces that exhibit dual meanings:
A crisis heterotopia is a separate space like a boarding school or a motel room where activities like coming of age or a honeymoon take place out of sight. Foucault describes the crisis heterotopia as "reserved for individuals who are, in relation to society and to the human environment in which they live, in a state of crisis". He also points that crisis heterotopias are constantly disappearing from society and being replaced by the following heterotopia of deviation. Heterotopias of deviation are institutions where we place individuals whose behavior is outside the norm (hospitals, asylums, prisons, rest homes). A heterotopia can be a single real place that juxtaposes several spaces. A garden can be a heterotopia, if it is a real space meant to be a microcosm of various environments, with plants from around the world. Similarly, theaters and cinemas are heterotopias where multiple incompatible spaces converge on a single stage or screen, bringing together different places, times, and realities in one location. Heterotopias of time or heterochronies, such as museums and libraries, enclose objects from all eras and styles within a single place. They exist in time, but also exist outside of time, because they are built and preserved in such a way to be physically impervious to the ravages of time. Some heterotopias, on the other hand, are more transient and fleeting, such as festivals and amusement parks, which exist only for a limited period and offer a temporary experience outside of daily routine. Heterotopias of ritual or purification are spaces that are isolated and penetrable, yet not as freely accessible as a public place. Either entry to the heterotopia is compulsory, as with imprisonment, or entry requires special rituals or gestures, like in a sauna or a hammam. Heterotopia has a function in relation to all of the remaining spaces. The two functions are: the heterotopia of illusion, which creates a space of illusion that exposes every real space; and the heterotopia of compensation, which creates a real space—a space that is other. Foucault's elaborations on heterotopias were published in an article entitled Des espaces autres (Of Other Spaces). In the article, Foucault calls for a society with many heterotopias, not only as a space with several places of or for the affirmation of difference, but also as a means of escape from authoritarianism and repression, stating metaphorically that if people take the ship as the utmost heterotopia, then a society without ships is inherently a repressive one.
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