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This article presents an argument about the reactions of young South Asian men to their economic and social exclusion. In a labour market increasingly characterized by insecurity, where bottom end service employment often demands a feminized 'service with a smile' performance, young working class men from minority communities are often disadvantaged in their search for work. It has been argued that in these circumstances a version of protest masculinity and involvement in urban unrest are typical responses. This argument is explored in a racialized minority area of Luton, where right wing organizations attempt to provoke streetbased reactions by young men. Instead, 'radical privatism', constructed through communal regulation, is a reaction to exceptional provocation, although young men's involvement in low level street unrest is also common in more 'normal' times.

This article examines the ways in which young migrant men are constructed as potential employees in a British town where service sector employment, often on a casual or precarious basis, dominates the bottom end of the labour market. Low-wage jobs in many British towns are now constructed as feminized, low waged and demanding personal skills of empathy and servility. In this context, young men, and especially young men of colour, including recent in-migrants, are at a disadvantage, constructed by employers, agencies, co-workers and customers as less eligible workers than 'locals'. We use the experiences of young men from Goa as a lens though which to trace the ways in which expectations and experiences when looking for employment produce a hierarchical division of labour in precarious jobs at the bottom end of the service sector.

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