Phone Clones by Kiran Mirchandani

Phone Clones by Kiran Mirchandani

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. 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 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 Mirchandani 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.

Phone Clones is, overall, a delight to readIt 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 *

Kiran Mirchandani is Associate Professor in the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. She is the coauthor of Criminalizing Race, Criminalizing Poverty and coeditor of The Future of Lifelong Learning and Work.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780801477676
ISBN 10	0801477670
Title	Phone Clones
Author	Kiran Mirchandani
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Cornell University Press
Year published	2012-04-17
Number of pages	192
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable