This roundtable is an effort to challenge prevailing assumptions that have long dominated the general discourse about citizenship and belonging. We use the Arabian Peninsula as the site for our discussion. Our scope and purpose involve both theoretical innovation and empirical diversity. Participants are multidisciplinary and put forth ideas that move conversation on the politics of citizenship and belonging beyond the usual suspects: oil and arms, the rentier framework, social contracts that exchange welfare for loyalty, a simple state-centric lens, the primacy of tribal identities, the binary of local or foreign worker, and the binary of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) or Yemen.