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Homotopia, or, Reading Sagas on an Industrial Estate

2018; Routledge; Volume: 30; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10412573.2018.1453647

1753-3074

Richard Cole,

Spatial and Cultural Studies

What are the psychological forces that imbue certain spaces with emotional power? Michel Foucault described one such space as “heterotopia.” Heterotopias are places of extreme color and diversity, where the magical coming-together of usually contradictory forces exerted profound influence on people’s emotions. This article presents spaces in Old Norse literature where it is not difference and strangeness that have dramatic impact, but rather sameness and familiarity. The term “homotopia” is proposed to describe such spaces. Scenes depicting two particular farmsteads from the sagas, Helgafell and Hlíðarendi, are considered as homotopias. Moreover, with reference to Karl Marx’s theory of labor alienation, it is argued that homotopias have the potential to serve as political propaganda, convincing workers that their workplaces are not sites of exploitation, but are instead objects of aesthetic enjoyment. With this political purpose in mind, literary artifacts from the Old Norse-speaking world are integrated into an intellectual genealogy arriving at the present day. In closing it is therefore suggested that some of the homotopias of the Íslendingasögur provide parallels with the homotopian industrial estates and strip malls of late capitalism.