Heritage Sites, Collective Memory and National Identity in the United Arab Emirates My paper focuses on heritage sites in the UAE and their use by the state in the construction of a national identity. The sites include Bastikiyya, the Dubai Museum and Hatta village in Dubai and the heritage zone in Sharjah. The question this paper raises is whether collective memory as preserved and exhibited in the buildings and artifacts on display conveys what Emiratis remember of the past before independence in 1971 or how the past has been represented by the state to construct a national identity in the post-colonial period. My paper argues that the state, represented here by the heritage zones, and its citizens have different interpretations of the past and have reacted differently to the rapid transformation of the economy, society and culture after 1971. While the state extols the progress made in nation building and economic development, the Emiratis interviewed often expressed a sense of loss and of feeling adrift in a country they no longer recognize. The project on which this paper is based began with oral interviews of Emirati citizens and visits to heritage sites between 1998 and 2002 and field work in Dubai and Sharjah in 2010. My paper draws on the work of Pierre Nora on collective memory and Eric Hobabawm and Terence Ranger on the invention of tradition. My paper contends that the heritage sites present an argument for a distinct Emirati culture and a communal identity before 1971 and the apparently seamless transition from community to nation in the post-colonial period. On the other hand, individual Emiratis emphasized the hardships and privations of life before 1971 and the almost complete and traumatic rupture between the past and the present that occurred with independence and that I contend has not been healed. While individual Emiratis did not express a desire to return to the hardships of the past, they did express an almost existential concern that their identity and culture, already transformed by modernization in the post-independence period, were now in danger of being overwhelmed if not eradicated by the globalization of Emirati society. My paper argues that there is a disparity between the memories of older Emiratis about the past and the state’s imposition of meaning on the various buildings and artifacts in the heritage areas through the narratives that accompany the displays and the way that material is organized.