The 1970s saw the emergence and proliferation across the Arabian Peninsula of ‘national museums’, institutions aimed at creating social cohesion and affiliation to the state within a disparate population. Through the combining and display of history, ethnography, anthropology, archaeology, photography and other media, national museums aimed to project, and actualise, a linear, coherent and stable history of, and for, the population. These museums aimed to create what Benedict Anderson has called an ‘imagined community,’ a community of people who perceive themselves as part of the new nation that transcended other existing identities of tribe, family, or ruler. Through the creation of a continuity of ‘the nation’, even including the pre-modern/pre-nation, a national story may be told which appears so authentic as to be inevitable. The strategic activation and use of material culture as a constructed national identity and history is not new, and has a long background in European museums. Through the use of the legitimising authority of the museum, collected heritage is authenticated and the authority of having value due to the choice to preserve it: “particular ideas of the nation are created and embedded in the exhibitionary forms of a range of cultural practices and institutions, such as tourism, museums, expositions and heritage displays” (Evans 1999: 2). The aim of this workshop is to investigate why, how, for whom, and to what end, this is occurring in GCC national and heritage museums as well as closely associated exhibitionary sites. Today, many of those museums are going through re-imagination and are being joined by new museums, all aimed at the projection of national self, both internally (as national cohesion and education) and externally (projection on the international stage) through 3 predominantly a single didactic authoritative though passive narrative. For some of the GCC states – most notably UAE and Qatar – with high expatriate population numbers, national museums and their exhibitions offer a vehicle for the enhancement of national identity, through a media – the museum – which is understood internationally as both legitimizing and authoritative. Through this meaning-making media the concept of the nation has been activated in order to represent the past, and in some instances the present, at the same time as it is commodified and monetarised for its role within tourism and consumption. The merging of the authoritative ‘museum’ with the idea of identity cohesion has resulted in museums which though named ‘national’ are rather local or regional, such as in the UAE (National Museum of Ras Al Khaimah and the Al Ain National Museum). Concurrent with the growing use of museums as vehicles for the diffusion of specific histories, is the use of heritage and exhibitionary practices outside the museum, particularly through the proliferation of archaeological digs and sites open to the public, and heritage festivals. Based on GCC citizen attendance numbers, heritage festivals attract far larger numbers than heritage or national museums, which may be attributed to the greater participatory nature of the festivals. Often seen within western literature as homogenous, national identity within each GCC state is not necessarily well established. Heritage – both authentic and created (such as camel racing) – may be a powerful and binding tool for the strengthening of the ‘nation’, as seen in projects such as the UAE 2008 Year of National Identity. Museums idealise certain aspects of the past, Bedouin culture for example, and actively exclude certain histories, people or occurrences, to create narratives of tradition that both encompass and challenge historical reality. Although the museums and heritage exhibitions represent identity creation by consensus, they also reinforce a specific notion of heritage and history that is useful and important to contemporary political power. Heritage and ‘tradition’ is constantly being redefined, and the use of heritage and museums for political purposes is a primary concern for museum professionals. In the region, it has been suggested that ruling elites attempt “to transform mythologized historical traditions into nationalist symbol[s] in a way that justifies . . . power” (Fromherz 2012: 158). Through the use of internationally understood culturally designated sites, specific and often narrow histories and identities can be represented, and ‘a’ national heritage identity and traditions projected. Within this workshop the wide-ranging use of these exhibitionary forms of national identity projection within the GCC would be considered for their motivations, implications (current and future), possible historical backgrounds, official and unofficial meanings, and meanings for both the user/visitor and the multiple creators (government, museum, staff, external organisations). Presentations may take a state-specific or multistate view, and the inclusion of participants from multiple disciplines is encouraged in order to uncover convergences which would not usually occur in subject-specific discussions.