Identity politics of the European Capital of Culture initiative and the audience reception of cultural events compared

Abstract

The European Capital of Culture (ECOC) is one of the EU’s longest running cultural initiatives. It has an identity political focus: The designation as an ECOC requires cities to plan cultural events which foster and bring to the fore local, regional, and European cultures and identities, and moreover, present the local culture as European. How are these identity political aims mediated to the audiences of the ECOC events? The article investigates the reception of cultural events in three recent ECOCs – Pecs2010, Tallinn2011, and Turku2011 – on the basis of a questionnaire study conducted among the audiences. With the methods of statistical and discourse analysis, the article explores how the audiences perceived area-based identities to be represented in the ECOC events. The study indicates that, unlike policy aims, the audiences emphasized national culture as the most important focus of the ECOC events.