Le navire comme espace d’exception : hétérotopie, antitopie, idiotopie

According to Michel Foucault, the ship is the perfect example of a heterotopia in the sense that she represents a space defined in terms of a “bundle of relations” that she maintains with the ordinary world while at the same time being external to it; presenting an inverted mirror image of it, she can even be said to constitute an “antitopia”: in this enclosed space of the ship an autonomous order is exercised, endowed with its own laws. However, Foucault’s point of view is that of society on land, far removed from the virtual world of the sea. On board, however, there is a very different conception of the world: we propose the term “idiotopia” for this singular functioning, “floating” independently of the world of landsmen.