heterotopia

Noun

heterotopia (countable and uncountable, plural heterotopias)

1. Normal tissue (or an organ) present at an abnormal part of the body

   Synonyms:

   allotopia, ectopia, ectopy, dystopia, malposition

2. The occurrence of an organism in a number of different habitats
3. (literary criticism) A space which is alien to what is normal within the society, variably presenting a utopian vision in physical form or serving to segregate subversive elements from the wider society.
   • Michel Foucault gave the museum and the mental hospital as two different examples of heterotopias.
   • For Foucault, heterotopias are not imagined places but real places that almost delete themselves from public consciousness. They are null sites in awareness, yet inevitable and vital to the construction of space.2002, James W Flanagan, David M Gunn, Paula M McNutt, "Imagining" biblical worlds