Women and posters as heterotopias in Ousmane Sembene’s Xala

Abstract This article analyses the connections between the female characters of Ousmane Sembene’s Xala and the diegetic posters seen on the walls during the film, which yields a new conversation on Michel Foucault’s heterotopias as utopias or non-spaces. As a result, women, posters and heterotopias define the spatial evolution of the main characters (including the male) as well as that of the film itself.