Critical Reading of Foucault's "Des Espace Autres"

Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was a postmodern philosopher and writer, who expanded on the concepts established by Lyotard regarding scepticism in grand narratives and the western idea of ‘progress’. In particular, Foucault wrote about surveillance, authority and systems of social control. According to Foucault, even philosophy itself (and other institutionalized knowledge) has been guilty of establishing domination over the public by filtering history to benefit those who do not want other interpretations. This is one of the many reasons why postmodernism values a plurality of viewpoints.

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In “Des Espace Autres” Foucault initially defines the present epoch as “of juxtaposition ...of the dispersed”(1) before comparing the differences between space and time in regards to their sacredness. Foucault held this concept of a disconnected generation as a primary concern in many other writings: “The net product of the forces constituting the present epoch make it one in which identities are either de-centered, dislocated, fragmented and placed in crisis.”(2)
The distinctions between spaces (such as private/public, family/social) is fortified by religion and tradition, as all these spaces “are still nurtured by the hidden presence of the sacred.”(3) I read Foucault’s point about spaces as the distinctions between places being understood by tradition or behaviour inside those spaces. In this way, these spaces are not vacuous, but have a quality whereby they dictate the proper conduct within them “via its network of relations (that) ...delineates sites which are irreducible to one another.”(4) Foucault carefully mentions Galileo’s contribution to philosophy, as the inventor of a constitution of an infinite which lead to “extension (being) substituted for localization”(5) . Now that the unchristian concept of an infinite universe existed, (without the Earth being the centre), everything became merely a point in movement.
“For Foucault, the experience of finiteness became a philosophical incitement. He viewed the power of contingency, which he ultimately identified with power per se, more from a stoical perspective than from the Christian frame of reference.” (6)
Positions and situations being forced upon people through tradition, religeous beliefs and localization slowly changed from this discovery to become based in extension instead. This led to a dispersed public due to the inability to accurately and absolutely locate and define spaces and their use. Now, Foucault believes, “the site” has replaced extension; and exists to this disconnected public as a contemporary space unsanctified, sacred and categorized.

Heterotopias are real sites that exist in all cultures, in which other real sites of any given society are “represented, contested and inverted”(7) . They do not possess a relation of direct imitation to a real space in society: that is a utopia. In “Constructing Nomadic Organizations in Virtual Spaces?”, Kivinen states that web pages can be “described utilizing Foucauldian notions of space, as these spaces can be described as both material, imagined and social.”(8) The web page ‘represents, contests and inverts’ the real world. The web page, like the mirror, presents us with projected identities, only on the internet they can be constructed to meet the needs or desires of the organization or the individual. More importantly, “web pages cannot be constructed in isolation from other texts and practices”(9) so it cannot exist alone. Indeed, the space of the internet is altered just by an individual logging on, thus co-consturcting the place it inhabits. Like a boat it is a place without a place, “nowhere” yet it can be ‘located’ in that others can ‘find’ it by typing in the URL address. The internet, for both commercial or personal use, is a heterotopic space constructed by the configuration of active social practices. It is not a utopia because it can be located and it does not directly imitate the social sphere, but is a representation of it.
“The organization does not express the system, it is an expression of the system.” (10)

The mirror is a utopia of course, because, like Lacanian thought, what you see is where you are not, thus discovering absence by seeing the place where you are not. Yet it functions as a heterotopia also because it makes where you are standing absolutely real in order for the image to exist, and be perceived. While a mirror “enables me to see myself where i am absent”(11), the internet does not necessarily create a space where an individual can be or cannot be, so it can only be described as a heterotopia. Like cinemas and oriental gardens, it offers an illusion of multiple spaces located in one, that do not directly imitate. In a vein similar to libraries and museums after the seventeenth century, the internet attempts to reflect all positions on history “constituting a place of all times that is itself outside of time and inaccessible to it’s ravages.” (12)
Foucault respected the social phenomena that new social spheres can give rise to, aware also of their ability to be abused.
“In France a theory developed that the railroads would increase familiarity among people and that the new forms of human universality made possible would render war impossible. But what the people did not foresee...was that, on the contrary, the railroads rendered war far easier to wage.” (13)
Geography and the internet both developed from the military, and continue to be a source of segregation and dislocation, whereby individuals can express a dissimilarity through expression, definition or location.

Of all of Foucault’s principles of heterotopias, the use of the phenomenon of ‘crisis’ seems to define all other types of heterotopias not already mentioned. Whether the ritualistic behaviour is related to a specific part of life (menstruating, young manhood, retirement, sickness, death) or of shameful, hidden or illicit activities (honeymooners or adulterers), they all occur within spaces that are specifically separated to denote their obvious dispersion or hide their shame from society. It is in the fourth principle of heterotopias, in which Foucault also includes places (such as pioneer re-enactment towns) as heterotopias holding a specific time. The final principle mentions entry into a heterotopia as a defining feature, leaving only public spaces where people can enter freely as a space that can possibly NOT be a heterotopia.
And yet, when public spaces in a city are considered, they also must be heterotopias: the architects, city planners and shop owners cannot be unconscious of styles they might reference from another time or space. Thus, there are references of decor and planning that ‘represent, contest or invert’ other sites. However, a site without decoration, constructed with only functionality in mind, could arguably not be a heterotopia. It would have to a space that did not reference another site nor linked to another time, nor capable of juxtaposing several spaces. Therefore, because all military rooms have controlled entry, only communal amenities such as public toilets remain as true spaces that are neither utopias or heterotopias, provided that their design can be proven to be based on function only.



1) Foucault Michel, “Architecture /Mouvement /Continuité” Paris: October 1984, “Des Escapes Autres” p 2
2) Barry, Andrew; Osbourne, Thomas; Rose, Nikolas; “Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism , Neo-liberalism and Rationalities of Government” London: UCL Press Limited, 1996 (Dean,Mitchell) p 213
3) Foucault Michel, “Architecture /Mouvement /Continuité” Paris: October 1984, “Des Escapes Autres” p 2
4) ibid p 3
5) ibid p2
6) Hoy, David Couzens “Foucault: A Critical Reader” New York: Basil Blackwell Inc, 1986 (Habermas,Jürgen “Taking Aim at the Present” ) p 103
7) Foucault Michel, “Architecture /Mouvement /Continuité” Paris: October 1984, “Des Escapes Autres” p 2
8) Clegg, Stewart R.; Kornberger, Martin; “Space, Organizations and Management Theory” Herndon: Liber & Copenhagen Business School Press, 2006 (Kivinen, Nina “Constructing Nomadic Organizations in Virtual Spaces?” ) p 164
9) ibid, p 167
10) ibid, p 171
11) Foucault Michel, “Architecture /Mouvement /Continuité” Paris: October 1984, “Des Escapes Autres” p 2
12) ibid, p 3
13) Rabinow, Paul “Space, Knowledge and Power” London: Penguin Group, 1984, p 243 (interview with Foucault)