Representing the Nation: Heritage, Museums, National Narratives, and Identity in the Arab Gulf States

The 1970s saw the emergence and subsequent proliferation across the Arabian Peninsula of ‘national museums’, institutions aimed at creating social cohesion and affiliation to the state within a disparate population. Representing the Nation examines the wide-ranging use of exhibitionary forms of national identity projection via consideration of their motivations, implications (current and future), possible historical backgrounds, official and unofficial meanings, and meanings for both the user/visitor and the multiple creators. The book responds to, due to the importance placed on tradition, heritage and national identity across all the states of the Peninsula, and the growth of re-imagined and new museums, the need for far greater discussion and research in these areas.

About the Author

Pamela Erskine-Loftus is director of The Media Majlis at Northwestern University in Qatar, a forthcoming academic museum on journalism, and media. Victoria Penziner Hightower is an Assistant Professor at the University of North Georgia—Dahlonega. She received her PhD from Florida State University in 2011 and holds two Master’s Degrees in History (Florida State University, 2004) and Near Eastern Studies (University of Arizona, 2006). Mariam Ibrahim Al-Mulla is an Art History Assistant Professor and Academic Coordinator in the History Programme at Qatar University, and in 2015 was a recipient of the national Education Excellence award