In recent years, community archaeology projects have explored how engagement with the past can enhance individual wellbeing and foster happiness, socialisation and self-esteem in vulnerable groups such as mental health users and veterans. Being the scenario of activities like digging, walking, photography, the historic landscape is at the core of archaeology-based interventions focusing on wellbeing. These activities often revolve around tangible and intangible aspects of the landscape – for example monuments and memories – calling into question different scapes.
To which extent can scapes provide a valid framework to understand archaeology-based interventions focusing on wellbeing? This paper wants to explore the significance of scapes in the theoretical conceptualisation of these interventions and reflect upon their short and long-term outcomes on participants and communities. Through qualitative methods, the study will analyse the extant literature on archaeology and wellbeing, coding any reference to scapes and other main themes in landscape studies. This analysis will offer some food for thought on how critically approaching scapes can inform the discussion on community wellbeing, being also the main topic of the project ‘Linking community archaeology and wellbeing in the Mediterranean’ (LOGGIA). Funded by the European Union as Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship, LOGGIA aims to understand the contribution of community archaeology practice to community wellbeing in the Mediterranean, by focusing on the inclusion of vulnerable groups.