1. Cultural policies and cultural entrepreneurship

Cultural practices are an ambivalent domain. On the one hand, cultural practices contribute to the dissemination of political discourses with implications in the fields of policies of recognition and social and political identities. On the other hand, cultural policies converge into governmental public action, constituting the complex space of cultural governance (^{Vargas, 2022}). Therefore, the impulse given by cultural policies to the various initiatives of cultural entrepreneurship together contribute to shape political strategies on territorial policies. Crafted by cultural practices, territorial policies are not only socially based upon civil society but also with the political community itself. These processes reinforce common values, commitments and identities driven by entrepreneurship.

Cultural practices have been embedded in the transformative initiatives and dynamics of cultural entrepreneurship, with implications for the political and economic dimension of cultural policies (^{Pratt, 2007}). Cultural policies, crafted and managed by governments and public cultural institutions, shape the opportunity structure and the environment in which cultural entrepreneurs drive. Cultural public policies can incite funding mechanisms, support intellectual property regulations, and influence the overall ecosystem for creative enterprises (^{Lounsbury and Glynn, 2019}), whilst cultural entrepreneurship, driven by the private sector (here including the individuals and the civil society), can boost cultural policy goals by fostering innovation, economic development, and the dissemination of diverse expressions (^{Naudin 2018}).

Growing urban areas characterised by multicultural societies are facing a multidimensional crisis - climate change, terrorism, armed conflicts, pandemics, migrations, inequalities, and populism. The international community has been expressing its growing concern about contemporary global challenges, while at the same time is seeking to establish multilevel cooperation combined with a shared vision for conceiving the transformative impact of culture for sustainable development (^{UNESCO, 2022a}). Meanwhile, under the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, UNESCO and the European Union have jointly coordinated efforts to strengthen creative economies and cultural industries in peripheral areas with a special focus on the ORs and SIDS (Council of the European Union, 2022; ^{UNESCO, 2022b}, ²⁰²³). These initiatives aim (i) to develop regulatory frameworks, (ii) to promote youth and women’s employment in the culture and creative industries, (iii) to address challenges related to industrial property rights and (iv) to promote international collaboration with the support of the EU and under the specialised guidance of UNESCO (^{UNESCO, 2023}).

Although, cultural policies and cultural entrepreneurship have clear evidence impact on the cultural and political values orientations of international public policies, namely towards 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (^{UNESCO, 2022a}, ^2022b; Council of the European Union, 2022; ^{OECD, 2023}), successful synergies involve aligning policy goals with the needs and interests of cultural entrepreneurs, promoting partnerships and creating opportunity structure for resilience and sustainable cultural endeavours. The dynamic interplay between cultural entrepreneurship and well-crafted cultural policies is essential for nurturing a vibrant and resilient cultural sector that enriches societies economically, socially, and artistically (^{Kolb, 2020}).

2. Outermost regions and creative cities

Under the bent of creative cities, cultural practices are compromised with cultural regional/local groups and associations (non-profit associations also) in order to compete against territorial fragmentation and isolation. Promoting cultural entrepreneurship has frequently been proposed as a way to boost creativity and innovation, as well as cultural tourism, trade in creative goods and services, and cultural employment. Thus, creativity became an entrepreneurial approach to cultural policies that seeks to expand cultural and creative sectors and promote cultural and political shifts beyond institutional politics and its policies towards resilience and sustainability.

In 2021 the European Union positioned creativity and entrepreneurship as a forefront players in transforming global challenges in opportunities for achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs)^[2]. Since then cultural entrepreneurship is giving framework to fulfil creative economy and competitiveness for the cultural and creativity sectors.

The working paper entitled Leveraging cultural and creative sectors for development in the European Union outermost regions (^{OECD, 2023}) centred the analysis on the conceptual framework of cultural and creative sector (CCS) to refer to cultural entrepreneurship. The report assessed the potential of CCS in the ORs and provides comparative date^[3] and strategic guidance in what concerns the potential of becoming creative cities, where the linkages with tourism strategies^[4] (French Guiana, Martinique, and Réunion) and the support of public policies (Azores, Madeira, and Canary Islands) are stressed as good examples of enduring the development of CSS with social and economic impacts by encouraging cultural participation and by promoting cultural entrepreneurship as part of cultural policies in the ORs.

Besides the recommendations to develop CCS in the European ORs in order to overcome disparities in cultural growth and to strengthen linkages between tourism, technologies, and sustainable development, the report also strives comparable data to understand CCS in European ORs (^{OECD, 2023}, pp. 14-36), acknowledging the double role of culture: the first one as an integral part of SDGs and the second one as a key contributor for international policies and foreign policy.

3. Outlying centralities

The different organisational cultures in terms of public policies (from culture to tourism), the promotion of CSS and the commitment to cultural entrepreneurship all contribute to the perform of outlying centralities. On the one hand, ROs constitute a differentiated geopolitical framework in terms of power relations. On the other hand, the ROs have created new bilateral and multilateral platforms with other peripheral regions of the globe (Caribbean Community, Micronesian ORs, Cape Verde, and other SIDS), thus facing global challenges in a resilient and sustainable way. The recognition of belonging to the territory and the strengthening of identities therefore configure new outermost centralities. The relationship between outermost territories goes beyond the boundaries imposed by cartographic geography and offers new cultural, creative, identity and governance potential.

Therefore, creative cities in the ORs start the dialogue between cultural practices in urban settings, in particular with the territory. Outlying centralities mean that the advocacy of cultural entrepreneurship allows to raise and explore political discourses that seem to favour renewed integration policies, here taken in the perspective of CCS in ORs. Following this perspective, cultural entrepreneurship is encouraging political linkages in terms of the meanings of common identities (community). Multicultural societies are using cultural practices to explore mechanisms for social research and protest (^{Oliveira, Vargas and Sarmento, 2024}). Additionally, the expansion of urban areas has made it possible to invest in the operationalization of cultural policies aimed at the cultural and creative sector. However, the spread of cultural entrepreneurship does not necessarily translate into convergent cultural policies. Analysing the different initiatives promoted by and for the ORs reveals the challenges of scale and each specificities, not only deriving from territorial fragmentation, but also from local identities themselves. This doesn’t necessarily mean convergence towards the political centre (Portugal, Spain and France), but the policy measures planned seem to be creating new outlying centralities - renewed interest in these spaces from both a cultural and creative sectors.