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    Borders in Service
    Enactments of Nationhood in Transnational Call Centres

    Kiran Mirchandani (Author), Winifred Poster (Author)

    9781487520595

    Paperback / softback, published 21 September 2016

    288 pages
    22.9 x 15.3 x 1.7 cm, 0.45 kg

    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.

    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
    View full details