Abstract
Michel Foucault's (1995) work on the distribution of people, discourses and objects within geographical and institutional spaces has provided an important insight into our understanding of the emergence of contemporary society. Foucault's substantive studies of prisons and medical and psychiatric institutions have been acutely attuned to the ways in which spaces are negotiated and lived through. Rather than conceive of relations of power or abstract ideas about social organisations as being imposed from above upon certain institutional and geographical spaces, Foucault was instead interested in "spaces of dispersion" where different bodies, social forces and ways of life come into contact with one another. In particular, Foucault's concept of heterotopia (Faubion, 1998) is geared towards considering the effects of radically different social spaces coming into contact with one another.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 40-51 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | Studies in Learning Evaluation Innovation and Development |
| Volume | 3 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Publication status | Published - 2006 |