‘There are also, and probably in every culture, in every civilisation, real places, actual places, places that are designed into the very institution of society, which are sorts of actually realised utopia….’
Here I provide some thoughts on the similarities and differences between the two contested concepts of heterotopia and utopia. . In terms of utopia, I briefly outline broad Blochian approaches to the utopian qualities of cultural productions as developed by Levitas. I go on to discuss Lefebvre’s concept of ‘heterotopy’ and Jameson’s work on utopianism, also influenced by Bloch. Finally, using Harvey’s work on ‘dialectical utopianism’, I argue for a clear distinction between heterotopia and utopia. The former is not anti-utopian, but provides a sideways analysis of existing material spaces in order not to anticipate the future, but to reflect upon and disturb the present.
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Woodcut of the island of Utopia on frontispiece of the 1st edition of Thomas More's Utopia 1516.
Illustration to Charles Fourier's (1772-1837) Social Utopia: View of Phalansterium.'
Boys at Mettray Penal Colony - utopia or heterotopia?
A panopticon - utopia or heterotopia?
It is sometimes inferred that the concept of heterotopia sits at the opposite extreme to the panopticon in Foucault’s thinking. This would be a mistake. Heterotopias include prisons and asylums. As with all Foucault’s deliberations, there is no sense of binary thinking. The panopticon is used by Foucault as a utopian ideal, an abstract concept of total control and discipline that could be formulated across other institutions such as schools and factories and which had a particular utility at a certain point in the modern era. The panopticon does not exist. On the other hand heterotopias do exist, a spatial and temporal play that evolves through the history of different spaces. Power here is ambiguous and reversible.
Peter