Competing nations: Russia, Sweden and geopolitics of (homo)sexuality at mega-events

International mega-events like the Olympic Games, the FIFA World Cup, and the Eurovision Song Contest have been described as sites where national identities and images are produced, negotiated, and contested. Simultaneously, sexuality has been increasingly included in the way nations articulate their own images. This paper is inspired by the notion of popular geopolitics, which highlights the ways popular culture is connected to geopolitics. By focusing on Russia and Sweden, it considers the role of (homo)sexuality for the construction of national images of these countries at several mega-events. The paper argues that sports and popular cultural events are the primary sites to signal where symbolic boundaries are drawn in relation to LGBT populations’ inclusion and exclusion especially since the “conservative turn” in Russian politics in 2012. Drawing on a material consisting of the publications in the five largest Swedish newspapers, spanning the period 2003-2019, it analyzes the ways the image of Russia was discursively created in the Swedish media at the sites of mega-events both before and after the social and political backlash in connection with the 2013 “gay propaganda” law in Russia. These events are approached both as symbolic and material productions that are enmeshed in economic and political interests. In doing so, the paper complicates the homophobic Russia/homofriendly Sweden binary by attending to the dynamics between national and international actors, such as activists, journalists, governments, international organizations, and the ways they engage discourses on nation and (homo)sexuality.