Creative City Narratives vs. Lived Realities: An Ethnographic Study of UNESCO Designation in Como, Italy

Massimiliano Raffa^*

• University of Insubria, Varese, Italy

This ethnographic study explores how cultural producers perceive, interpret, and make sense of the UNESCO Creative City designation, focusing on the lived experiences of practitioners in Como, Italy, following its 2021 inclusion in the network. Anchored in critical urban theory and cultural sociology, the research examines how institutional narratives of creativity intersect with, and often diverge from, the interpretive frameworks through which cultural actors understand their work and position themselves within local cultural ecologies. Findings reveal three interrelated disjunctures: institutional disconnection, expressed through parallel cultural worlds governed by conflicting evaluative logics; spatial constraints, exacerbated by tourism intensification, that undermine the conditions for creative practice; and fragmented networks, which cultural producers seek to overcome through emergent forms of solidarity and cooperative adaptation. The study highlights significant tensions between top-down policy frameworks and bottom-up cultural labor, showing how local creative communities actively reinterpret, resist, and reshape institutional discourses. These actors pioneer context-sensitive responses that challenge conventional models of cultural production while foregrounding issues of remuneration, infrastructure, and professional development. By centering the meaning-making practices of cultural producers, the research contributes to debates on the instrumentalization of culture in urban governance and offers critical insights for more inclusive, sustainable, and dialogic cultural policy frameworks.