Re-theorizing Heterotopia: Towards an Ambiguous Utopianism

In this paper, I propose that a more theoretically promising understanding of the concept of ‘heterotopia’ is possible only if we attend to its utopian roots. To do this I examine the ambiguous utopia/heterotopia that is the Métis community of Ste Madeleine - a small settlement near where I grew up that was destroyed by the settler government. By re-theorizing ‘heterotopia’ conceptually from utopian studies, and particularly the work of Louis Marin, we arrive at a more theoretically useful concept for analyzing the actual places/spaces that Foucault gestures toward in his original articulation of the concept.