Ricerc@Sapienza

In this article I address two interrelated topics: space construction and the perception of the built environment at
Palenque, Chiapas, during the Late Classic Period. Starting from the study of Palenque’s urban morphology and
by using Geographic Information System’s tools, I aim at underlying intentionality in specific buildings’ position
and to explore how people’s urbanity, that is their condition in the city and the experience of otherness, would
have transformed their perception of the environment. To this end, I will consider some characteristics of the

This special section of European Urban and Regional Studies maps out a move from a strictly geopolitical to more socio-political and socio-cultural interpretations of the European Union’s (EU’s) ‘Mediterranean neighbourhood’. In doing this, the authors propose a dialogic understanding of neighbourhood as a set of ideas and imaginaries that reflect not only top-down geopolitical imaginaries but also everyday images, representations and imaginations.