Global Display—Local Dismay. Debating “Globalized Heritage” in Bahrain

This article discusses how “globalized heritage” is perceived and debated in the Arab Gulf state of Bahrain. These debates raise questions about what kinds of heritage count as global, and how categories of local and global are employed by various actors in current heritage debates. The article focuses especially on recent debates concerning the ambitious and internationally oriented Bahrain National Museum, which has received severe criticism from Islamist representatives in the National Parliament in the wake of the museum’s approach to culture and heritage. Focusing on the values variously attributed to “local” and “global” heritage in the public sphere of Bahrain, the article shows how “globalized heritage” has become an empirical, but contested category at the centre of contemporary debates on identity in the modern Arab Gulf.