ABSTRACT
This chapter develops the concept of space further, concentrating on Foucault's spatial approach and the heterotopic imagination. The idea of heterotopia is useful, not as a formal concept or model, but as a catalyst for thinking about the complexities of spaces. Foucault's concept of heterotopia provides an important link between his spatial approach and the Church's spatially interpreted vocation. Foucault focuses on emplacement by considering how it is defined by "the space outside", because "people live inside an ensemble of relations that define emplacements that are irreducible to each other". As a space of freedom, the Church is a human institution, which aspires to be different, even a heterotopia of deviation. Critical awareness, new spaces, the imagination, and shared wisdom all play catalytic roles in ecclesial chemistry. Foucault's explicit work on the imagination belongs primarily to the archaeological period of his work; though the effects of the imagination are implicitly present throughout his career.
