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Evaluating the direct impact of heritage on well-being – a spiritual matter?
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Date
2025
Authors
Nolan, Claire
Journal Title
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Volume Title
Publisher
Archaeopress
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Abstract
Based on the findings of multiple studies undertaken over the past 15 years or more, it is now clear that heritage-based well-being projects have the potential to offer a range of social and therapeutic benefits. Furthermore, the current evidence base suggests that heritage assets, in their narrative, aesthetic and temporal capacities, can influence well-being in unique ways within certain contexts. Such impacts manifest, for example, through a greater sense of identity, place, time, and connectedness. Reviewing recent studies concerned with the heritage-specific nature of these experiences, this exploratory paper suggests that the direct impact of cultural heritage on well-being might be tracked by evidencing these effects in their capacity as processes to well-being. Based on the existential quality of these processes, in terms of the meaning-making and perspective-taking dynamics inherent within them, it questions whether routinely used evaluation tools alone can sufficiently assess this impact. Accordingly, with an eye to developing sector-specific indicators capable of isolating these effects, the paper briefly explores relevant well-being frameworks and asks if, in respect of their existential components, validated spiritual well-being scales might provide a way forward.
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Keywords
Heritage assets , Heritage-specific well-being , Eudaimonic well-being , Existential experience , Spiritual well-being , Meaning-making
Citation
Nolan, C. (2025) 'Evaluating the direct impact of heritage on well-being – a spiritual matter?' [forthcoming], in Darvill, T., Heaslip, V. and Barrass, K. (eds.) Well-being through archaeology and heritage: Resolving therapeutic unknowns. Oxford: Archaeopress.
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© 2025.