Introducing Heritage Connectedness: Connections to People, Nature and Place Across Time are Associated with Wellbeing and Environmentalism

Humans have a deep desire for connectedness. A sense of relationship with heritage potentially stands as an important form of connectedness that matters for both personal and planetary wellbeing. Exploring the concept of heritage connectedness is the overarching aim of this paper. Focus groups and interviews were used to understand what heritage connectedness means to people. Then, using a new heritage connectedness measurement approach, a large-scale survey of over 1400 adults was used to explore the relationship between local heritage connectedness and mental wellbeing and environmentalism. The analysis also included measures of social and nature connectedness, and established socio-demographic correlates, to benchmark heritage connection effects. The results showed that the novel concept of heritage connectedness can be defined and that it is associated with mental wellbeing, to levels similar to, or greater than, accepted benchmarks. Links to environmentalism were also found. Heritage connectedness is proposed as a construct worthy of further study, with the potential for significant contributions to our understanding of how connectedness affects wellbeing and environmentalism.