ABSTRACT
Power, knowledge and spatial arrangements form a nexus of concerns in the works of Michel Foucault which have recently attracted the serious interest of geographers in general and which should receive similar consideration from those immersed in South African politics. As this chapter will demonstrate, such attention is appropriate both for writing a history of the apartheid city and for reflecting upon a possible post-apartheid urban order. In his genealogies Foucault sought to detail something of the power-knowledge connections which underpin modern society. His was a pessimistic view, one which saw systems of knowledge and various social practices intrinsically bound up with power and which interpreted supposed liberal reforms (for example, in prisons, or ultimately in the establishment of the welfare state) as elaborating upon and refining power techniques. As his commentators point out, for Foucault transformation and revolution would not necessarily bring freedom or liberation. Most likely, new forms of power would emerge, perhaps not disconnected with those of the past, which could very well survive a transformation focused upon the centre and not the extremities of power (Cocks 1989). As the new South Africa is being negotiated at the commanding heights of the power institutions of both the state and the opposition, it is appropriate therefore to consider the more routine power networks which have shaped and may in the future continue to shape South African cities.
