Geography … is it your destiny? Culturally sustainable development and creative industries nexus in the case of Turkey

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article reconsiders the creative industry's role in Turkey's sustainable development using the cultural economic geography approach. Although this is a well-established approach with ongoing popularity in the existing creative industries literature, few studies directly address the role of distinct cultural factors in the sustainable development of emerging countries. Turkey's unique geographical location and relatively younger population has been a primary source of its cultural, historical, social, and economic diversity as well as creativity. Yet, the country faces profound problems in this ecosystem. Arguably, a critical issue is the culture's implicit role in Turkish sustainable development. Moreover, Turkey has been moved away from the realization of ‘cultural policies' under the hegemony of neoliberalism. The present study argues that the ‘sustainable development’ discourse in the dominant political parlance has been failed to be recognized as of cultural policy importance. This is especially true in the inclusion of culture into the development paradigm, and how it can be rediscovered and linked to contemporary socio-economic debates within the creativity and development nexus.