Heritage, health and place: The legacies of local community-based heritage conservation on social wellbeing

Abstract

Geographies of health challenge researchers to attend to the positive effects of occupying, creating and using all kinds of spaces, including 'green space' and more recently 'blue space'. Attention to the spaces of community-based heritage conservation has largely gone unexplored within the health geography literature. This paper examines the personal motivations and impacts associated with people's growing interest in local heritage groups. It draws on questionnaires and interviews from a recent study with such groups and a conceptual mapping of their routes and flows. The findings reveal a rich array of positive benefits on the participants' social wellbeing with/in the community. These include personal enrichment, social learning, satisfaction from sharing the heritage products with others, and less anxiety about the present. These positive effects were tempered by needing to face and overcome challenging effects associated with running the projects thus opening up an extension to health-enabling spaces debates.

Gardener Well-Being along Social and Biophysical Landscape Gradients

“…To measure garden-derived well-being benefits, we used qualitative methods for well-being analyses that may offer further insight into garden-derived benefits [23,26] than numerical measures [49]. Using qualitative semi-structured questions, we asked gardeners if and how community gardening has a positive impact on their or their family's well-being.…”

New and Emerging Challenges to Heritage and Well-Being: A Critical Review

“…Increasingly, links are being made between various aspects of heritage and its relationship to well-being. In addition to notable books that touch upon these links such as Museums, Health and Well-Being [1], Human Well-Being and the Natural Environment [2] and Heritage and Community Engagement [3], recent articles have appeared in a broad array of disciplinary journals on issues including the impact of archaeological excavations on happiness [4], the therapeutic effects of community-based heritage conservation [5], and how the aesthetic experience of heritage sites can reduce stress [6]. While well-being is rarely indexed in major heritage handbooks or readers [7][8][9][10], there is a growing body of literature indicating that cultural heritage, including rock art [11], ancient architecture [12], written heritage [13], material culture [14] and intangible cultural practices [15], is very important for contemporary well-being for diverse groups of people.…”

Analysing the Mediating Effect of Heritage Between Locals and Visitors: An Exploratory Study Using Mission Patrimoine as a Case Study

“…The presence of a community and its relation with the heritage could develop also a wellbeing condition. Power & Smyth [37] argue that it is important understanding the space that is created by community-based heritage groups and whether it is likely to promote social welfare. Gleeson [38] state that in the era of globalization and ecological risk it is certainly understandable that there is a new desire for social values based on community, belonging and place.…”

“…Gleeson [38] state that in the era of globalization and ecological risk it is certainly understandable that there is a new desire for social values based on community, belonging and place. That is what Gleeson call the new social yearning: the desire for a safe place in a social networks based on reciprocity, trust and mutual respect [37].…”

“…Communities can also be based on heritage. Power & Smyth [37] state that the preservation of community-based cultural heritage refers to the increasingly popular activity of uniting with community members to research local historical "assets". It involves the development of a stronger relationship with your local area and is potentially open to everyone, regardless of location.…”