Doctorial Dissertation Research: Understanding Transnational Labor Formations in the Indian Call Center Economy

博士论文研究：了解印度呼叫中心经济中的跨国劳动力构成

• 批准号: 0613134
• 负责人: John Hartigan
• 金额: $ 1.13万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Austin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-07-01 至 2007-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0613134&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctorial; Dissertation; Research; Understanding; Transnational

Under the supervision of Dr. John Hartigan, graduate student Mathangi Krishnamurthy will carry out an ethnographic study of business call centers in India, with a particular focus on the high rates of worker turnover. Since early 2000, businesses in the United States increasingly have outsourced their customer support centers to India as part of global business expansion and optimization practices. Stakeholders in business and government view the international call center industry as an advanced economic solution for both corporations and developing nations. Indian and international media, on the other hand, criticize this emerging service sector as surreptitiously replacing workers in the west with maltreated and culturally alienated Indian youth. By exploring the high rate of labor turnover in Indian call centers, this project seeks to understand how Indian call center workers portray and live their own lives in relation to the practices, representations, and material effects of the transnational call center economy. Ethnographic fieldwork will be carried out in Pune, a prominent university town and call center hub in Western India. The researcher will work in a call center; she also will interview current and former workers, as well as those who train and supervise them. The research will examine workers' experiences in relation to 1) labor management practices within call centers, (2) contentious international and local debates on the call center industry, and (3) socio-economic transformations that accompany and frame the development of this urban call center economy. The project also will incorporate content from the public domain such as newspaper articles, documentaries, news presentations, and online forums to contextualize the experiences of workers within the debates surrounding the industry. The research approach is integrative and applies methods and theory from socio-cultural anthropology, urban studies, and critical business management analyses in order to contribute to knowledge on the ramifications of global capital movement.

在John Hartigan博士的指导下，研究生Mathangi Krishnamurthy将对印度的商业呼叫中心进行一项人种学研究，特别关注员工的高流动率。自2000年初以来，越来越多的美国企业将其客户支持中心外包给印度，作为全球业务扩展和优化实践的一部分。企业和政府的利益相关者将国际呼叫中心行业视为企业和发展中国家的先进经济解决方案。另一方面，印度和国际媒体批评这个新兴的服务业暗中用受虐待和文化疏远的印度青年取代西方的工人。通过探索印度呼叫中心的高劳动力流动率，该项目旨在了解印度呼叫中心的工作人员如何在跨国呼叫中心经济的实践、表现和物质影响中描绘和过自己的生活。人种学田野调查将在普纳进行，普纳是印度西部著名的大学城和呼叫中心枢纽。研究人员将在呼叫中心工作；她还将采访现任和前任员工，以及那些培训和监督他们的人。本研究将考察工人在以下方面的经验：1)呼叫中心内的劳动管理实践；(2)有争议的国际和本地关于呼叫中心行业的辩论；(3)伴随并构成城市呼叫中心经济发展的社会经济转型。该项目还将纳入公共领域的内容，如报纸文章、纪录片、新闻演讲和在线论坛，以将围绕行业的辩论中的工人经验置于背景中。研究方法是综合的，并应用了社会文化人类学、城市研究和关键商业管理分析的方法和理论，以促进对全球资本流动后果的认识。