This publication contributes to new understandings of how heritage operates as a global phenomenon and the transnational heritage discourses that emerge from this process. Taking such a view sees autochthonous and franchised heritage not as separate or opposing elements but as part of the same process of contemporary globalised identity-making, which contributes to the development of newly emergent cosmopolitan identities. The book critically examines the processes that are involved in the franchising of heritage and its cultural effects. It does so by examining the connections and tensions that emerge from combining autochthonous and franchised heritage in the United Arab Emirates, providing a unique window in to the process of creating hybrid heritage in non-Western contexts. It develops new ideas about how this global phenomenon works, how it might be characterised and how it influences and is itself affected by local forms of heritage. By exploring how autochthonous and franchised heritage is produced in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates it becomes clear that Western-dominated practices are often challenged and, perhaps more importantly, that new ways of understanding, producing and living with heritage are being articulated in these previously marginal locations. The book offers innovative insights into heritage as a transnational process, exploring how it operates within local, national and international identity concerns and debates. It will appeal to scholars and students interested in critical heritage studies, museums, tourism, cultural studies and Middle Eastern studies.

There is a vast body of international and national law that regulates cultural heritage. However, the current regulation remains quite blind to the so called "transnational heritage". This is heritage where there is no community recognized in law that it can be directly attributed to and that can be responsible for its safekeeping and preservation. It can also be items of heritage where the claim of ownership is disputed between two or more peoples or communities. Transnational heritage challenges the idea of monolithic, mono-cultural, ethno-national states. There are a number of examples of such cultural heritage, for instance the Buddhist Bamiyan statutes in Afghanistan, Palmyra in Syria, the Jewish heritage of Iraq, or various items that are currently housed in large, often Western, museums, as a result of colonial practices. This book explores the regulation of transnational heritage. By discussing many cases of transnational heritage and the problems that arise due to the lack of regulation the book analyses the manifestations of memories and constructions of communities through heritage. It focuses particularly on the concept of community. How are communities constructed in cultural heritage law and what falls outside of the definitions of community? The book underlines that the issues surrounding transnational heritage involve more than a communal right to culture. It is argued that transnational heritage also directly affects wider matters of law such as citizenship, human rights, sovereignty, as well as the movement of people and cultural goods.

Museums of the Arabian Peninsula offers new insights into the history and development of museums within the region. Recognising and engaging with varied approaches to museum development and practice, the book offers in-depth critical analyses from a range of viewpoints and disciplines. Drawing on regional and international scholarship, the book provides a critical and detailed analysis of museum and heritage institutions in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Yemen. Questioning and engaging with issues related to the institutionalisation of cultural heritage, contributors provide original analyses of current practice and challenges within the region. Considering how these challenges connect to broader issues within the international context, the book offers the opportunity to examine how museums are actively produced and consumed from both the inside and the outside. This critical analysis also enables debates to emerge that question the appropriateness of existing models and methods and provide suggestions for future research and practice. Museums of the Arabian Peninsula offers fresh perspectives that reveal how Gulf museums operate from local, regional and transnational perspectives. The volume will be a key reference point for academics and students working in the fields of museum and heritage studies, anthropology, cultural studies, history, politics and Gulf and Middle East Studies.

The Yearbook of Transnational History is dedicated to disseminating pioneering research in the field of transnational history. The ten chapters of this volume explore topics and themes of heritage creation from the Crusades to the Apollo space flights.

How are issues related to identity representation negotiated in Middle Eastern and North African museums? Can museums provide a suitable canvas for minorities to express their voice? Can narratives change and stereotypes be broken and, if so, what kind of identities are being deployed? Against the backdrop of the revolutionary upheavals that have shaken the region in recent years, the contributors to this volume interrogate a range of case studies from across the region - examining how museums engage inclusion, diversity and the politics of minority identities. They bring to the fore the region's diversity and sketches a 'museology of disaster' in which minoritised political subjects regain visibility.

This Handbook provides a succinct overview of sport in the Middle East, drawing in scholars from a wide variety of geographical and disciplinary backgrounds (history, politics, sociology, economics and regional studies), with different methodological approaches, to create the ‘go-to’ text on the subject. After the introduction, 33 chapters from leading subject experts cover areas including history, politics, society, economy and nationhood. The authors help shed light on how certain Middle Eastern countries have become increasingly active in international sports, and the efforts made to positioning themselves as the new global ‘sports hubs’. Split into five sections, the book offers a multi-disciplinary analysis of a diverse range of sports across the geographic Middle East, including football, mixed martial arts, rugby, athletics and cycling. The authors highlight and respond to issues such as the naturalisation of athletes, female athleticism, sports media and supporter cultures. The Routledge Handbook of Sport in the Middle East stands apart from previous research through offering first-hand accounts of sport in the area from authors who live and work in the region or have a history of regularly visiting and conducting research in the region. It will be of interest to academics and students alike, in the fields of Middle East politics, sport, sport in the Middle East, international relations, governance and sociology.

Patchwork in times of plurality encompasses the multitude of actions as a revealing symbol of ethos, actors, organisms, and manifestations of preservation and dialogue frontiers. This plural metaphor, almost like a patchwork, aggregates and yet segregates, conforms, but disfigures, and boosts the meanings which represent this new field that international relations have been recently crossing. Just like the mirror metaphor - that reflects everything to all and, sometimes, intervenes in distortions - the patchwork analogy allowed the book to take responsibility for the disclosure of preservation actions on a global scale. The book has a pioneering role insofar since it is the only publication with such characteristics, concerns, and coverage. The work studies the interconnection between cultural properties and international relations by understanding them as a mosaic before the bridges that intertwine people and borders. The main goal of this work is to illustrate in what way intergovernmental relations have been privileging heritage and culture as acting fields for its broader needs. Therefore, the book addresses topics related to the international agenda, focusing on its less debated themes. Two examples of these undervalued matters are the link between actors, preservationist actions, and the universe of world cultural heritage. The book also pursuits a critical dialogue between interdisciplinary fields that narrow heritage frontiers in search to contribute with a spectrum of academic perspectives and (inter)national study cases. To serve distinct economic, social, or political purposes, institutionalized heritage (embodied by different values) becomes instrumentalized in a top-down direction. In a development frame, when we perceive culture as indispensable to human life, the past is transformed into exchange currency. Through the creation of alternative fields of action, usually in a bottom-up logic, the present builds new heritage connections. Digital heritage's preservation, dissemination, and appreciation have been representing these same nets.

Women and Contemporary Art in the Gulf offers a unique focus on the roles of women in contemporary art, cultural production and arts institutions in the Gulf. Drawing on in-person experiences of the art and sites discussed, as well as research on regional artists and arts institutions, DeTurk argues that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been largely excluded from the critical discourse about, and display of, contemporary Middle Eastern art. The book addresses this oversight by providing an examination of the work of several contemporary women artists from the Gulf region. DeTurk also discusses the role of women in museums and cultural institutions in the region, as well as the education systems available to emerging women artists. The discussion and analysis at the heart of the book connect to a range of larger themes, including the visual culture of patriarchy, connection to material culture and heritage, religious beliefs, trade and migration, rapid development, and the need to envision and create a post-oil economy. Women and Contemporary Art in the Gulf, with its examination of the critical role women play in the formation of the cultural landscape of the Gulf, is an important contribution to discourse around the changing role of the GCC. It will be essential reading for scholars and students engaged in the study of art history, visual culture, museums and heritage, and women and gender studies.

Urban Modernity in the Contemporary Gulf offers a timely and engaging discussion on architectural production in the modernization era in the Arabian Peninsula. Focusing on the 20th century as a starting point, the book explores the display of transnational architectural practices resulting in different notions of locality, cosmopolitanism, and modernity. Contextually, with an eye on the present, the book reflects on the initiatives that recently re-engaged with the once ville moderne which, meanwhile, lost its pivotal function and meaning. A city within a bigger city, the urban fabric produced during the modernization era has the potential to narrate the social growth, East–West dynamics, and citizens’ memories of the recent past. Reading obsolescence as an opportunity, the book looks into this topic from a cross-country perspective. It maps, reads and analyses the notion of modern heritage in relation to the contemporary city and looks beyond physical transformations to embrace cultural practices and strategies of urban re-appropriation. It interrogates the value of modern architecture in the non-West, examining how academic research is expanding the debate on Gulf urbanism, and describes how practices of reuse could foster rethinking neglected areas, also addressing land consumption in the GCC. Presenting a diverse and geographically inclusive authorship, which combines established and up-and-coming researchers in the field, this is an important reference for academics and upper-level students interested in heritage studies, post-colonial urbanism, and architecture in the non-West. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

State-driven investments in art and cultural production in the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are an important part of the search for longer-term alternatives to the longer-term unsustainability of the hydrocarbon-based economic development model. They also are an element in the search for soft power and status, and intersect with the nation-building project. The long-term planned––and unplanned––effects of such cultural initiatives include a necessary opening up to a future of unexpected and often undesired cultural encounters, whether in the classroom, the art gallery, the sports stadium, or the labor office. As states driven by a desire to raise both their regional and international status, but needing to satisfy their domestic conservative constituencies, their greatest test will be their judicious negotiating of the conflicting sociocultural elements of an increasingly globalized world. This volume offers a comprehensive multi-disciplinary analysis of this complex arena and the state of art and cultural production in these Gulf societies, through original studies on identity formation and an emerging museology; the aesthetics of censorship; the question of authenticity; cultural projects as state-driven soft power efforts; the phenomenon of public art; and artistic engagements with migrant labor communities. The chapters originally published as a special issue in the Journal of Arabian Studies.