BENJAMIN, FOUCAULT AND HETEROTOPIA

In this article, my aim is to investigate whether there is an affinity between the concept of heterotopia, which is the most important idea in Michel Foucault’s philosophy of space and the observations of the arcades of Paris in Walter Benjamin’s Passagenwerk. Foucault conceives heterotopias having a mission to provide a different life experience for us. Also, they demystify our ideological dreams. In a similar way, Benjamin says that by means of the arcades of Paris, the city provides an opportunity for a different experience for its inhabitants in the 19th century. The arcades became a condition of possibility for the experience of Paris in that era. My article highlights the possible points of convergence between Foucault’s and Benjamin’s conceptions of space