Shaping Arab Identity Through the Beautiful Game: A Heterotopic Analysis of the 2022 World Cup

ABSTRACT This study examines how the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar functioned as a heterotopic space through which Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) identities were publicly articulated, negotiated and made visible. Drawing on Foucault's notion of heterotopia and Lefebvre's understanding of space as socially produced, the paper approaches the tournament as a distinctive spatial configuration in which everyday practices, affective expressions and political narratives acquired heightened significance. Rather than treating the World Cup as a depoliticised global spectacle, the analysis shows how its spatial and temporal conditions enabled forms of collective identification that resonated across the wider region. These included the reactivation of shared regional memories, the articulation of Palestinian narratives within a Gulf context and challenges to entrenched Orientalist representations of Middle Eastern and North African publics. By situating these dynamics within debates that have often prioritised state‐centric or institutional accounts of MENA politics, the paper contributes a spatially grounded reading of how political meaning and public engagement emerge in non‐traditional arenas. In doing so, it highlights the importance of space, affect and everyday practice for understanding contemporary political expression in the region, particularly in relation to the normative and symbolic dimensions of Gulf small‐state politics. This research offers new insights into how sport, nationalism and heterotopic spaces intersect to provide avenues for subversive identity articulation and political discourse.