Constructing racialised masculinities in/through affective orientations to a multicultural town

This paper examines how gendered and racialised discourses and practices intersect to shape, to an extent, the ways in which young men are affected by representations of Luton and how they experience urban space. Using Wetherell’s concept of affective intersectionality, Hage’s distinction between passive and governmental belonging and Brah’s interpretation of diasporic identities, we argue that the affective-discursive modalities through which participants make sense of belonging reflects wider political discourses positioning them as differently valued. Despite contradictions and ambivalences, racialised young men tended to express relatively more positive feelings of being ‘at home’ in their neighbourhood and in Luton than the white young men we interviewed. Yet, they were also less likely to express a sense of entitlement to the city. Furthermore, spectacular racist events reinforced more mundane experiences of everyday racism, particularly among Muslim young men.