Anyway, the point of all this is that yes, this concept does seem to be
highly applicable to Internet sites as well, even in situations where
people's names are known, but other factors (distance, lack of social
status cues, etc.) provide a sense of anonymity. While xmca is a
relatively stable discussion list, many other e-mail discussion lists
certainly have a heterotopic feel to them. (And seizing control of an
Internet discussion can be about as difficult as seizing control of Los
Angeles).
How this relates back to carnival-like behavior in the classroom using
other methods of communication, I'm not sure. It does seem to represent a
polar opposite to IRE though.
Mark
Foucault, M. (1986). Of other spaces. Diacritics, 16(1), 22-27.
Relph, E. (1991). Post-modern geography. The Canadian Geographer, 35(1), 98-105.
Soja, E. W. (1990). Heterotopologies: A remembrance of other spaces in the
citadel-LA. Stragies(3), 6-39.
Warschauer, M. (in press). Heterotopias, panopticons, and Internet
discourse. UH Working Papers in ESL. Honolulu, Hawai'i: University of
Hawai'i Department of English as a Second Language.
Mark Warschauer, University of Hawai'i, markw who-is-at hawaii.edu
http://www.lll.hawaii.edu/markw