Through the Looking Glass: Windows to ‘Cities in the Luso-Hispanic World’

Abstract

Abstract This editorial opens the special issue of the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies titled ‘Cities in the Luso-Hispanic World’ by suggesting that these introductory pages are transparent panes of glass on a vehicle of transportation passing through and linking the research articles that make up this special volume. The editorial’s narrative movement is not unlike that of a car driving through the urban spaces of a city, and the eight authors’ analyses are not unlike the moving images of cityscapes flashing before the car’s windows. The above metaphor of the narration as a ride through urban space serves to situate a variety of topics (movement, visibility, images, representations, rhythms, noise, heritage, reified capital in the form of buildings, and circulation of people and cultural products) as part and parcel of specific urban contexts, including Lisbon (Portugal), Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo (Brazil), Mexico City (Mexico), and Madrid and Córdoba (Spain) through poetry, novels, film, sound and architecture. Running through each contribution is the ongoing enquiry on how urban processes manifest culturally in Luso-Hispanic regions, and at a variety of scales, with special attention to bodies moving in, through, and around specific urban centres.