The carceral heterotopia: spatial crisis, opacity, and post-release temporality in two Jordanian prisons

This article examines how imprisonment is experienced spatially and temporally in two Jordanian facilities—Juwaida and Swaqa Correctional and Rehabilitation Centers—through Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia. Drawing on phenomenologically oriented semi-structured interviews with people formerly incarcerated ( n = 9), state officials ( n = 7), and human rights experts ( n = 6), we make two contributions. Empirically, we provide rare interview-based evidence from a Middle Eastern carceral context, showing that, for this subset of participants, prisons operate across two overlapping heterotopic registers: deviation and compensation. Theoretically, we extend Foucault’s fourth principle of heterochronia by documenting and conceptualizing a post-release temporal condition—“stuck time”—that persists beyond formal release. While post-release temporal disruption is established in Western carceral scholarship, theorizing it as a heterochronic afterlife has been absent from the literature. We argue that heterotopic analysis remains productive when heterochronia is understood to extend beyond spatial boundaries, producing an internalized rhythmicity that continues to structure subjectivity long after the prison gate opens.