Model homes for model(led) citizens: Domestic economies of desire in prosperity square

The construction of identity and the cultivation of model citizens are explored in the context of a model housing project for the working classes in 19th-century Cork, Ireland. Historical and contemporary ethnographic analysis reveals the deployment of disciplinary technologies to demarcate the respectable working classes from the unruly mob. Power as subjectification is manifest in the anticipatory socialization and self-presentation of prospective tenants to the normalizing gaze of the community and in the performances of good citizenship by past and present residents. Evasions, resistances, and neurotic responses to the civilizing process are also examined.