A Relational Approach to Event Sustainability: Applying Actor–Network Theory and Foucauldian Discourse Analysis to a Music Event

Abstract

The framing of event sustainability should go beyond the greening of specific events and the event sector. Based on a relational approach, we used actor–network theory and Foucauldian discourse analysis to investigate the debate on a music event sustainability. We collected and discursively analysed online newspapers and social media data regarding this event’s sustainability. The findings showed a polarised discourse characterised by conflicting views on, for example, nature, and three missing discourses—academic, local community, nonhuman—which we identified as alternative discourses and leverage points for greater sustainability. These findings allowed us to conceptualise event sustainability as a catalysing network of actors, ideas, and relationships attracted to magnetic poles powered by different understandings of central concepts. This study proposes an understanding of event sustainability in relational terms and its contribution resides in the combination of actor–network theory and Foucauldian discourse analysis as a possible approach to such understanding.