Heterotopia is a concept elaborated by 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, mirroring and yet upsetting
what is outside.
The prefix hetero- is from Ancient Greek ἕτερος (héteros: other, another, different) and is combined
with the Greek morpheme τόπος (tópos: place) and means ‘other place’.