AUTHOR=Pekkarinen Jenni 
  
TITLE=Culture and sustainability in international Capital of Culture programmes’ macro-level agendas: an ecosystemic and buen vivir perspective
  
JOURNAL=European Journal of Cultural Management and Policy
  
VOLUME=Volume 16 - 2026
  
YEAR=2026
  
URL=https://www.frontierspartnerships.org/journals/european-journal-of-cultural-management-and-policy/articles/10.3389/ejcmp.2026.16453
  
DOI=10.3389/ejcmp.2026.16453
  
ISSN=2663-5771
  
ABSTRACT=This paper analyses from an ecosystemic and buen vivir perspective the ways in which international Capital of Culture programmes, as international cultural policy actors, approach and frame the relationship between culture and sustainability in their official macro-level agendas. The article focuses on the world’s two oldest Capital of Culture titles, the European and the Ibero-American. Both titles mention sustainability or sustainable development in their agendas, but previous research has not analysed how exactly they understand sustainability and its relation to culture. As the CoC programmes relate to both local and global policy contexts, they provide an insightful case for studying how policy emphases may be integrated into and influenced by such cultural programmes. The frame analysis method was used to identify how the titles make sense; select, name and categorise; and tell stories of the relationship between culture and sustainability and relevant ecosystemic connections and interdependences. The concept of buen vivir, based on the lifestyles and philosophies of Latin American Indigenous peoples, provided a critical non-Western lens for the analysis. It enriched the ecosystemic analysis with the principles of biocentrism, plurality, glocality, and interrelatedness of more-than-human life. The findings indicate that the European Capital of Culture sees culture as a driver of lasting local and regional cultural, economic, and social—but not environmental—legacy, whereas the IACoC considers culture an enabler of sustainable development, as understood in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, through integral and transversal cultural policies. Both titles addressed sustainability-related issues, but a critical analysis showed that their visions of a sustainable change were based on anthropocentric and Western notions of development. The article argues that more transformative sustainability approaches would require a conscious reframing of the titles’ sustainability approaches, which would mean questioning hegemonic sustainable development discourses and openness to alternative conceptions. The paper proposes mindset-related and concrete steps towards more impactful sustainability thinking and action in the context of CoCs and cultural policies, as well as a non-anthropocentric reconceptualisation of a CoC ecosystem.