How might current public-spheres theory underestimate the rhetorical potential of an enclave public—portraying, as such theory does, an enclave as an acutely limited resource for rhetorical empowerment (Squires 458)? This is the question this study takes up. To do so, this study analyzes the digital paper trail of residents of the Cabrini-Green public-housing complex in Chicago, Illinois, as the complex fell siege to policy decisions to demolish it. My analysis shows that these residents’ rhetoric defied limited conceptions of an enclave. Specifically, I argue that by building a network of interconnected coalitions and by using its enclave position as a point of publicity, this group’s rhetorical work complicates scholarship on how groups with little citizenship status might vie for public accountability to them as agents recognized for
their rhetorical leverage.
A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric