Kiran Mirchandani
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801450648
- eISBN:
- 9780801464140
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801450648.003.0005
- Subject:
- Sociology, Occupations, Professions, and Work
This chapter examines the economy of familiarity that runs through constructions of customer service workers in India. Like the economy of difference, the economy of familiarity occurs when ...
More
This chapter examines the economy of familiarity that runs through constructions of customer service workers in India. Like the economy of difference, the economy of familiarity occurs when familiarity is put to work by “involving circuits of production, exchange and consumption.” In the case of the Indian customer service industry, familiarity works to create an “imagined kinhood” between workers in India and those in the West. Such a kinhood is enacted through the notion of professionalism, which is actualized in work processes in India through processes of control. This chapter explores the labor processes through which Western work norms are enacted in Indian call centers. It shows that becoming an ideal transnational customer service worker involves a constant process of enacting, revisioning, and resisting distinctions between the West and India, modern and backward, progressive and traditional. Finally, it argues that Indians are positioned as a model workforce for transnational service work through a well-orchestrated public relations machinery.Less
This chapter examines the economy of familiarity that runs through constructions of customer service workers in India. Like the economy of difference, the economy of familiarity occurs when familiarity is put to work by “involving circuits of production, exchange and consumption.” In the case of the Indian customer service industry, familiarity works to create an “imagined kinhood” between workers in India and those in the West. Such a kinhood is enacted through the notion of professionalism, which is actualized in work processes in India through processes of control. This chapter explores the labor processes through which Western work norms are enacted in Indian call centers. It shows that becoming an ideal transnational customer service worker involves a constant process of enacting, revisioning, and resisting distinctions between the West and India, modern and backward, progressive and traditional. Finally, it argues that Indians are positioned as a model workforce for transnational service work through a well-orchestrated public relations machinery.
Kiran Mirchandani
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801450648
- eISBN:
- 9780801464140
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801450648.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Occupations, Professions, and Work
This chapter examines the ways in which national interests are defined and nationalisms exercised through calls between Indian customer service agents and Western customers. Through training and work ...
More
This chapter examines the ways in which national interests are defined and nationalisms exercised through calls between Indian customer service agents and Western customers. Through training and work process, the difference between India and the West is enacted to allow Indians to be “understood” by Westerners. Overall, this difference is constructed not only in terms of language and culture but also in terms of nationalist policies and histories. Before discussing how nationalist discourses are expressed in relation to Indian customer service work at call centers, this chapter considers how Indian customer service workers are distanced in terms of their physical location. It also looks at the dramatic shift from locational masking to the open acknowledgment of work in India in the context of Western debates on outsourcing occurring between 2003 and 2004.Less
This chapter examines the ways in which national interests are defined and nationalisms exercised through calls between Indian customer service agents and Western customers. Through training and work process, the difference between India and the West is enacted to allow Indians to be “understood” by Westerners. Overall, this difference is constructed not only in terms of language and culture but also in terms of nationalist policies and histories. Before discussing how nationalist discourses are expressed in relation to Indian customer service work at call centers, this chapter considers how Indian customer service workers are distanced in terms of their physical location. It also looks at the dramatic shift from locational masking to the open acknowledgment of work in India in the context of Western debates on outsourcing occurring between 2003 and 2004.
Kiran Mirchandani
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801450648
- eISBN:
- 9780801464140
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801450648.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Occupations, Professions, and Work
This chapter examines the language training undertaken by prospective customer service agents in India before they are allowed to interact with Western customers. Language training is justified in ...
More
This chapter examines the language training undertaken by prospective customer service agents in India before they are allowed to interact with Western customers. Language training is justified in terms of the need for Western clients to understand and be understood by workers, but it also serves to establish a starting point of difference, where all Indians, irrespective of their location, background, or education, are deemed deficient in their use of English. This chapter considers the processes through which India's customer service workers are constructed as “different” from Westerners. It explains how Indian call center agents are embodied through their voices, and are known as those who speak a strange and corrupted form of the English language. It argues that becoming a transnational customer service worker involves “sounding right”; this has been termed “aesthetic labor.”Less
This chapter examines the language training undertaken by prospective customer service agents in India before they are allowed to interact with Western customers. Language training is justified in terms of the need for Western clients to understand and be understood by workers, but it also serves to establish a starting point of difference, where all Indians, irrespective of their location, background, or education, are deemed deficient in their use of English. This chapter considers the processes through which India's customer service workers are constructed as “different” from Westerners. It explains how Indian call center agents are embodied through their voices, and are known as those who speak a strange and corrupted form of the English language. It argues that becoming a transnational customer service worker involves “sounding right”; this has been termed “aesthetic labor.”
Kiran Mirchandani
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801450648
- eISBN:
- 9780801464140
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801450648.003.0008
- Subject:
- Sociology, Occupations, Professions, and Work
This book has explored the authenticity work of customer service workers in India, revealing the proactive, conscious, and continual negotiation of sameness and difference that characterizes the ...
More
This book has explored the authenticity work of customer service workers in India, revealing the proactive, conscious, and continual negotiation of sameness and difference that characterizes the transnational service economy. It has shown how authenticity work sheds light on the work of establishing legitimacy in the context of colonial histories and transnational economic relations. It has considered how authenticity work requires Indian customer service agents to be phone clones—simultaneously similar and different from their Western customers. The book concludes by discussing the notion of authenticity in relation to the microprocesses of economic globalization. It argues that call center agents suffer from a gaping hole in regulatory entitlements in the context of contemporary neoliberalism, such as employer violations of their terms of employment.Less
This book has explored the authenticity work of customer service workers in India, revealing the proactive, conscious, and continual negotiation of sameness and difference that characterizes the transnational service economy. It has shown how authenticity work sheds light on the work of establishing legitimacy in the context of colonial histories and transnational economic relations. It has considered how authenticity work requires Indian customer service agents to be phone clones—simultaneously similar and different from their Western customers. The book concludes by discussing the notion of authenticity in relation to the microprocesses of economic globalization. It argues that call center agents suffer from a gaping hole in regulatory entitlements in the context of contemporary neoliberalism, such as employer violations of their terms of employment.
Kiran Mirchandani
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801450648
- eISBN:
- 9780801464140
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801450648.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Occupations, Professions, and Work
Transnational customer service workers are an emerging touchstone of globalization given their location at the intersecting borders of identity, class, nation, and production. Unlike outsourced ...
More
Transnational 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. This book 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 clients—to 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 believable and authentic in their emulation of this ideal. In conversation with Western clients, Indian customer service agents proclaim their legitimacy, an effort the book calls “authenticity work,” which involves establishing familiarity in light of expectations of difference. In their daily interactions with customers, managers and trainers, Indian call center workers reflect and reenact a complex interplay of colonial histories, gender practices, class relations, and national interests.Less
Transnational 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. This book 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 clients—to 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 believable and authentic in their emulation of this ideal. In conversation with Western clients, Indian customer service agents proclaim their legitimacy, an effort the book calls “authenticity work,” which involves establishing familiarity in light of expectations of difference. In their daily interactions with customers, managers and trainers, Indian call center workers reflect and reenact a complex interplay of colonial histories, gender practices, class relations, and national interests.
