Correction at Cabrini-Green: A Sociospatial Exercise of Power

Foucault developed theories on the exercise of power so that they might be applied to geographically and historically specific instances, In this paper I analyze the processes of power recently in operation on the black population of the Cabrini-Green housing development in Chicago. Previously excluded from the larger urban matrix, the residents have been subject to a variety of forces—Involving discipline, discursive containment, physical repression, and deterrence —as attempts have been made to ‘reclaim’ the area and regulate the sociospatial control of bodies. Issues of visibility, knowledge, and situation are paramount both in the processes of power involved in ‘rehabilitating’ Cabrini-Green and in the residents' resistance to such outside intervention.