Heterotopia
(hetero - different, topus - place), is a concept Michel Foucault conceived in
his book "The Words and Things" (Of other Spaces) to describe how defined spaces
surround the subject (the person within society, for example) lead to harm to
the power of the individual , And the negation of his power and sometimes also
his identity. Heterotopia is the way in which culture and society, which have
power on the one hand and a defined interest in realizing it on the other,
define the subject, the individual, through his distinction from general
society. Initially, the term was used to describe an unreal verbal space, and
later Foucault expanded on spatial reference (both physical and non-physical).
The excluded from
public space can be defined as subjects, that is, members of the social
structure, who are free-willed by their very definition as human beings, but at
the same time are subjects of the culture that explores them as objects, and
builds them as culturally adapted social entities. Heterotopia then dismantles
the subject as the object of study, allowing its redefinition through its
“correcting” and “correct” meaning. Foucault argued that prisons, institutions
for the mentally ill, the disabled and even the schools constitute such spaces,
the Heterotopias. This is because these are sites separated from their
surroundings, which completely control the movements to, from and within them.
Social exclusion, which does not involve restricting the individual's freedom
of movement (for example: non-representation of minorities in the media), also
creates a Heterotopic space in this context.
Similar to
the concept of "Hegemony" coined by Antonio Gramsci, here too it is
an almost imperceptible and "natural" social means for the members
within the group, to supervise, control, isolate and exclude the exceptions and
the different. For most of the group members, who accept them by consent and
some argue that even in humility its laws, the actual and unreal Heterotopia
structures are perceived as natural, harmless and even necessary. To challenge
such structures, it is necessary to deconstruct the values that constitute
them. At times, a stranger to culture and society may easily notice and
criticize these structures, while group members will not notice them or
attribute any negative meaning to them. Like the mechanisms of hegemony, this
feature of the heterotopic space is one of its many strengths.
According to
Foucault, Heterotopia is a critical process in culture and is a condition for
the existence of a social life. It enables the formation of the crowd and its
design into a company with defined characteristics, which takes place in a
given space and time. Heterotopy can be linked to the way in which society
replicates, formulates and creates norms of behavior and judges the individual
according to them, on the assumption that society is defined, among other
things, by the strangers and exceptions within it. This process of social
construction, which separates the obedient public from the unwritten rules of
society, and those that deviate from the norms officially and unofficially
defined in it, is a process that constitutes and defines a group identity, from
which the personal and private identity of each group member is derived. In his
essays, Foucault addresses, among other things, the genealogy of punishment and
the way in which it is used for the existence of Heterotopias.
