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Borders in Service: Enactments of Nationhood in Transnational Call Centres

By Kiran Mirchandani and Winifred Poster

© 2016

Borders in Service traces the intersection of service labour and national identity across global call centres in seven countries: El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Mauritius, Morocco, the Philippines, and the US-Mexico border. While most studies on offshore call centres have focused on India this collection explores the experiences of call center workers in many of the newly emerging hubs of transnational service work.

In this collection, Kiran Mirchandani and Winifred Poster have gathered a wide range of contributors to explore the dynamics within global call centres. Such dynamics include: language, speech, accent issues, expressions of consumer sentiment, physical space, and organizational, human resource, and labour policies. By grounding the theoretical debates on nationhood and labour in the realities of daily life in global call centres, Mirchandani and Poster have created a timely, accessible and revealing collection that will change what we know about offshored customer service work.
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Product Details

  • Division: Scholarly Publishing
  • World Rights
  • Page Count: 288 pages
  • Dimensions: 6.0in x 0.7in x 9.0in
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  • PUBLISHED SEP 2016

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    Regular Price: $30.95

    ISBN 9781487520595
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    ISBN 9781487500801
  • PUBLISHED OCT 2016

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    Regular Price: $30.95

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Quick Overview

In this collection, Kiran Mirchandani and Winifred Poster have gathered a wide range of contributors to explore the dynamics within global call centres.

Borders in Service: Enactments of Nationhood in Transnational Call Centres

By Kiran Mirchandani and Winifred Poster

© 2016

Borders in Service traces the intersection of service labour and national identity across global call centres in seven countries: El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Mauritius, Morocco, the Philippines, and the US-Mexico border. While most studies on offshore call centres have focused on India this collection explores the experiences of call center workers in many of the newly emerging hubs of transnational service work.

In this collection, Kiran Mirchandani and Winifred Poster have gathered a wide range of contributors to explore the dynamics within global call centres. Such dynamics include: language, speech, accent issues, expressions of consumer sentiment, physical space, and organizational, human resource, and labour policies. By grounding the theoretical debates on nationhood and labour in the realities of daily life in global call centres, Mirchandani and Poster have created a timely, accessible and revealing collection that will change what we know about offshored customer service work.
Continue Reading Read Less

Product Details

  • Division: Scholarly Publishing
  • World Rights
  • Page Count: 288 pages
  • Dimensions: 6.0in x 0.7in x 9.0in

  • Reviews

    "Borders in Service is a fascinating collection of studies from various disciplines that contributes in important ways to an expanding literature on transnational call-centre work.The chapters are uniformly interesting and are all well-grounded methodologically."


    Marjorie DeVault, Professor Emerita of Sociology, Syracuse University

    "Borders in Service is a serious advance in state-of-the-art research. In a number of different ways, it offers a fresh take on call-centre work and its implications. The book is eminently readable."


    Bob Russell, Adjunct Associate Professor, Griffith University

  • Author Information

    Kiran Mirchandani is at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto.


    Winifred Poster is at Washington University in St. Louis.

  • Table of contents

    Acknowledgements

    Introduction

    Chapter 1
    Enactments of Nationhood in Transnational Call Centers
    Winifred R. Poster and Kiran Mirchandani

    Part I:  Call Centers as Building Blocks for Narratives of the Nation-State

    Chapter 2
    “El Salvador Works”: The Creation and Negotiation of a National Brand and the Transnational Imaginary
    Cecilia M. Rivas

    Chapter 3:  Growing Downhill? Contestations of Sovereignty and the Creation of Itinerant Workers in Guyanese Call Centers
    Alissa Trotz, Kiran Mirchandani, and Iman Khan

    Chapter 4
    ‘An Island Off the West Coast of Australia:’  Multiplex Geography and the Growth of Transnational Tele-Mediated Service Work in Mauritius
    Chris Benner and Jairus Rossi

    Part II:  Constructing Nationally-Appropriate (and In-Appropriate) Workers

    Chapter 5
    We Serve the World: Everyday Nationalism and English in the Philippine Offshore Call Centers
    Aileen O. Salonga         

    Chapter 6
    Transnational Homies and The Urban Middle Class: Enactments of Class, Nation, and Modernity in Guatemalan Call Centers
    Luis Pedro Meoño Artiga        

    Part III:  Caught in the Middle:  Labors of Borders and Crossings

    Chapter 7
    Migrations a L’Envers: Global Service work and Discursive Crossings
    Sanae Elmoudden         

    Chapter 8
    Border Speech Between Two National Linguistic Ideologies: The Case of Bilingual El Paso Call Centers
    Josiah Heyman and Amado Alarcón       

    Summary

    Chapter 9
    Conclusions: Borders in Service
    Kiran Mirchandani and Winifred R. Poster      


    List of Contributors

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