Heterotopias

Abstract

Abstract Drawing on the intellectual archaeologies of Michel Foucault, the notion of the heterotopic—of the other place that is neither utopian nor dystopian, and of the other figures who might inhabit such places—uses configurations of abnormality as a way of interrogating our sense of the normal. Capitalizing on the new digital technologies common to science fiction (sf) film, sf heterotopias are able to visualize, almost effortlessly, other possible spaces and beings, in the process doing the most fundamental work of sf—challenging a set and bounded sense of world and self, while hinting at better alternatives. This chapter primarily considers District 9 (2009) and Arrival (2016) in terms of Foucault’s formulation and Mary Louise Pratt’s notion of the “contact zone,” a contested site of colonialist heterotopias.