Place, Belonging and Identity: The Role of Cultural Heritage in Community Well-Being: A Literature Review

The study of well-being is gaining traction across many academic disciplines, with a strong emphasis on the factors that shape individual and collective well-being. One particularly compelling area for deeper analysis is the contribution made by cultural heritage to community well-being. This literature review offers a synthesis of the central themes of this relationship identified by researchers in 187 papers over the last 50 years. It highlights the variety of disciplines examining the issue from different theoretical perspectives and explores the impacts to community well-being experienced when interacting with cultural heritage of all types. What is consistent across the data is the integral role cultural heritage plays in reinforcing community identity and social cohesion, which is reinforced by the emotional benefits of place attachment and belonging. The analysis draws together the central themes and builds a theoretical framework to summarize the identified conceptual interactions and highlights several potential avenues for future work. Expanding knowledge on this issue will enable the creation of evidence-based interventions for the utilization of cultural heritage for well-being improvements. It will also provide greater clarity to the broader societal values of cultural heritage, with a view to refining and improving cultural heritage management and regulatory systems.