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Space, Body, and Heterotopia: Reading the Television Drama Unknown Seoul

  • Journal of Popular Narrative
  • 2026, 32(3), pp.287~324
  • DOI : 10.18856/jpn.2026.32.3.008
  • Publisher : The Association of Popular Narrative
  • Research Area : Interdisciplinary Studies > Interdisciplinary Research
  • Received : August 27, 2026
  • Accepted : October 18, 2026
  • Published : October 31, 2026

Back Hyun Mi 1

1전남대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to reinterpret Michel Foucault's concept of heterotopia in relation to the phenomenology of perception and, drawing upon this theoretical framework, to conceptualize the representational characteristics of the television drama Unknown Seoul (2025). In the phenomenology of perception, discourse on space has inherently been an inquiry into the body. This is because space is the field where the body dwells and establishes its orientation, while the body serves as the medium of perception that remains open toward space. Foucault's concept of heterotopia, which emerged from a phenomenological foundation, can thus be understood as being deeply implicated not only in space but also in the body. Consequently, heterotopia can comprehensively refer to both "other spaces" and "other bodies" that challenge and contest the normalizing social arrangement. Unknown Seoul is a textual site where these "other spaces" and "other bodies" are manifested. The drama reveals how disciplinary power operates on the bodies of women, people with disabilities, and sexual minorities, while simultaneously representing the process by which characters, once paralyzed by fear, step out of the isolated rooms in which they confined themselves. These rooms—initially closed off by isolation and fear but eventually opened through empathy and solidarity—function as an "other space," or heterotopia, exposing the true nature of the achievement society and interrogating its presumed self-evidence. Meanwhile, the twins’ act of exchanging their lives and another pair's performative act of living under a single name both accommodate multiple lives within a single body, revealing the potential of a body that resists being dictated by social naming and prescribed roles. Ultimately, these practices manifest an "other body"—an embodied heterotopia—that both reflects and subverts the dominant social arrangement.

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