ABSTRACT
This chapter presents culture as a part of quality of life and cultural sustainability. It investigates the relation between participation in cultural services and barriers to accessing culture. The concept of sustainable development contains economic, social, cultural, and ecological dimensions. Cultural policy became institutionalised in Finland during the 1950s, at the same time as in other Nordic countries. The first research project, Local Cultural and Sport Services: Access and Democracy (CULTSPO), was based on interviews and survey results, both conducted in 2012. The second project Activating Cultural Participation in Local Communities (KUULTO), is an action research project that asks how to generate new and sustainable practices for the production of cultural services and how to encourage people to participate. An external norm arising out of thinking about sustainability is its ethical motivation, sustaining quality of life means preserving the elements of natural, social, and cultural capital that humans appreciate today as options for future generations.
