Description
Book SynopsisTransnational customer service workers are an emerging touchstone of globalization given their location at the intersecting borders of identity, class, nation, and production. Unlike outsourced manufacturing jobs, call center work requires voice-to-voice conversation with distant customers; part of the product being exchanged in these interactions is a responsive, caring, connected self. In Phone Clones, Kiran Mirchandani explores the experiences of the men and women who work in Indian call centers through one hundred interviews with workers in Bangalore, Delhi, and Pune.
As capital crosses national borders, colonial histories and racial hierarchies become inextricably intertwined. As a result, call center workers in India need to imagine themselves in the eyes of their Western clientsto represent themselves both as foreign workers who do not threaten Western jobs and as being just like their customers in the West. In order to become these imagined ideal workers, they must be
Trade Review
Phone Clones is, overall, a delight to read. It draws from a refreshing compilation of ethnographic materials, such as scribbles from workers' notes in training sessions, which are quire revealing of their internalization—and resistance against—the authenticity project. Mirchandani interweaves perspectives from diverse fields and intellectual traditions, engaging both theoretical and empirical sources, to provide a captivating adventure for the audience. This book will be valuable for the classroom, for scholarly research, and for the joy of reading.
-- Winifred R. Poster * ILRReview *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Authentic Clone
1. Transnational Customer Service: A New Touchstone of Globalization
2. Language Training: The Making of the Deficient Worker
3. Hate Nationalism and the Outsourcing Backlash
4. Surveillance Schooling for Professional Clones
5. "Don't Take Calls, Make Contact!": Legitimizing Racist Abuse
6. Being Nowhere in the World: Synchronous Work and Gendered Time
Conclusion: Authenticity Work in the Transnational Service Economy
