Michel Foucault explains the concept of heterotopia: a mirror-realm of layered and interrelated truths without systematic, temporal, or spatial orders. He describes two types of heterotopias in societies: crisis heterotopias and heterotopias of deviation; ethnographic museums are an example of both in that they house collections of cultures and histories in an attempt to create a place outside time, and in that they attempt to describe the other—those deviating from the ‘Western’ norm. His definition of heterotopia has provided an insightful framework for evaluating objects and museums. Foucault describes 6 principles of heterotopias: 1. that all cultures have heterotopias, 2. that society can change the ways in which heterotopias function (particularly useful as it applies to museums and new postmodern approaches), 3. that heterotopias can superimpose many conflicting and/or paradoxical elements in a single space (useful in describing the social and historical biographies of objects), 4. that the concept of heterotopia gives rise to the concept of heterochronia (of which a museum is an example, as it accumulates histories and objects with their own layered histories onto itself), 5. that heterotopias all have systems of inclusion and exclusion (some examples in museums are security screening, implied behavioral rules, etc.), and 6. that heterotopias function relative to the surrounding space (relevant to the idea of museum as microcosm of social, political, and economic relationships).