Socio-Spatial Dialectics, Cultural Hegemony and Urban Sustainability: The Thessaloniki International Fair as a Representational Space

This article investigates the Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF) as a socio-spatial, symbolic and cultural formation within the urban landscape of Thessaloniki and considers its implications for socially sustainable urban development. The study examines how the Fair is collectively represented, what meanings residents, visitors, exhibitors and institutional actors attribute to it, and how institutional narratives interact with everyday urban experiences. Drawing on socio-spatial dialectics and cultural hegemony, the research adopts a sequential mixed-methods design combining a survey of 1066 residents conducted in 2019, 103 semi-structured interviews with exhibitors and visitors conducted in 2019, and 15 interviews with institutional and political stakeholders conducted in 2020. The findings reveal the hybrid character of the TIF as an economic platform, cultural event and political stage. Exhibition participation and perceived impacts vary significantly across demographic and residential groups, while qualitative evidence highlights both the Fair’s contribution to urban vitality and the pressures it generates in relation to mobility and everyday urban life. The study demonstrates that recurring, centrally located exhibitions operate simultaneously as spaces of institutional representation and lived negotiation. By linking these processes to questions of accessibility, inclusion, public-space use and urban governance, the paper contributes to debates on the social and spatial dimensions of urban sustainability and on the sustainable integration of major event infrastructures into host cities.