Call Centers and the Global Division of Labor

Call Centers and the Global Division of Labor PDF Author: Andrew J.R. Stevens
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135118671
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Call centers have come, in the last three decades, to define the interaction between corporations, governments, and other institutions and their respective customers, citizens, and members. The offshoring and outsourcing of call center employment, part of the larger information technology and information-technology-enabled services sectors, continues to be a growing practice amongst governments and corporations in their attempts at controlling costs and providing new services. While incredible advances in technology have permitted the use of distant and "offshore" labor forces, the grander reshaping of an international political economy of communications has allowed for the acceleration of these processes. New and established labor unions have responded to these changes in the global regimes of work by seeking to organize call center workers. These efforts have been assisted by a range of forces, not least of which is the condition of work itself, but also attempts by global union federations to build a bridge between international unionism and local organizing campaigns in the Global South and Global North. Through an examination of trade union interventions in the call center industries located in Canada and India, this book contributes to research on post-industrial employment by using political economy as a juncture between development studies, the sociology of work, and labor studies.

Call Centers and the Global Division of Labor

Call Centers and the Global Division of Labor PDF Author: Andrew J.R. Stevens
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135118671
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Get Book Here

Book Description
Call centers have come, in the last three decades, to define the interaction between corporations, governments, and other institutions and their respective customers, citizens, and members. The offshoring and outsourcing of call center employment, part of the larger information technology and information-technology-enabled services sectors, continues to be a growing practice amongst governments and corporations in their attempts at controlling costs and providing new services. While incredible advances in technology have permitted the use of distant and "offshore" labor forces, the grander reshaping of an international political economy of communications has allowed for the acceleration of these processes. New and established labor unions have responded to these changes in the global regimes of work by seeking to organize call center workers. These efforts have been assisted by a range of forces, not least of which is the condition of work itself, but also attempts by global union federations to build a bridge between international unionism and local organizing campaigns in the Global South and Global North. Through an examination of trade union interventions in the call center industries located in Canada and India, this book contributes to research on post-industrial employment by using political economy as a juncture between development studies, the sociology of work, and labor studies.

Feminist Global Political Economies of the Everyday

Feminist Global Political Economies of the Everyday PDF Author: Juanita Elias
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135133607X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
This collection interrogates the multifaceted ways in which global transformations are constituted by deeply gendered socio-economic practices at the level of the ‘everyday’. It brings feminist insights to bear on the emerging International Political Economy (IPE) debates about ‘the everyday’, showing how gender is key to understanding how political economy is enacted and performed at the local level, by non-elites, and via various cultural practices. Drawing on ‘everyday’ IPE and a longer-standing body of feminist scholarship that documents and theorizes the mutually constitutive nature of, on the one hand, global markets, and on the other, households, families, relations of social reproduction and gendered socio-economic practices, this collection charts the lived realities of people and communities across a wide range of sites and spaces of the global political economy. It considers how globalizing capitalism affects and is in turn affected by Argentine sex workers, Nepalese private security contractors, Canadian call centre workers, Southeast Asian domestic workers, workers and players in British bingo halls, working class households in the UK, and much more. It demonstrates, through detailed empirical research, that a gender lens is crucial for understanding how, and on what terms, individuals and households are becoming ever more enmeshed in capitalist social relations, and how they actively and creatively resist these processes. The chapters originally published as a special issue in Globalizations.

Salvadoran Imaginaries

Salvadoran Imaginaries PDF Author: Cecilia M. Rivas
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813571839
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
Ravaged by civil war throughout the 1980s and 1990s, El Salvador has now emerged as a study in contradictions. It is a country where urban call centers and shopping malls exist alongside rural poverty. It is a land now at peace but still grappling with a legacy of violence. It is a place marked by deep social divides, yet offering a surprising abundance of inclusive spaces. Above all, it is a nation without borders, as widespread emigration during the war has led Salvadorans to develop a truly transnational sense of identity. In Salvadoran Imaginaries, Cecilia M. Rivas takes us on a journey through twenty-first century El Salvador and to the diverse range of sites where the nation’s postwar identity is being forged. Combining field ethnography with media research, Rivas deftly toggles between the physical spaces where the new El Salvador is starting to emerge and the virtual spaces where Salvadoran identity is being imagined, including newspapers, literature, and digital media. This interdisciplinary approach enables her to explore the multitude of ways that Salvadorans negotiate between reality and representation, between local neighborhoods and transnational imagined communities, between present conditions and dreams for the future. Everyday life in El Salvador may seem like a simple matter, but Rivas digs deeper, across many different layers of society, revealing a wealth of complex feelings that the nation’s citizens have about power, opportunity, safety, migration, and community. Filled with first-hand interviews and unique archival research, Salvadoran Imaginaries offers a fresh take on an emerging nation and its people.

Job Quality in an Era of Flexibility

Job Quality in an Era of Flexibility PDF Author: Tommy Isidorsson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351358529
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
This is the era of flexibility. Under constant pressure to be adaptable, organizations increasingly adopt employment practices such as zero-hours contracts, the casualization of the workforce and the use of temporary and agency labour. These flexible practices are central to debates about the changing nature of job quality and its causes, trends and consequences. Arguing that job quality is central to understanding contemporary work, this book explores the internal and external pressures for flexibility in workplaces, professions and sectors and how this pressure shapes workers’ experiences of job quality. By studying job quality dynamics via case studies from organizations and occupations in the UK, Poland, Belgium and Sweden, the volumes illustrates the diversity of practices and experiences, as well as market pressures and institutional arrangements which effect working lives. Finally, the editors propose a policy debate on the new concept "flexiquality" - a combination of flexibility and job quality that can be beneficial for both management and workers.

The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory

The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory PDF Author: Lisa Disch
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190623616
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1089

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Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory provides a rich overview of the analytical frameworks and theoretical concepts that feminist theorists have developed to analyze the known world. Featuring leading feminist theorists from diverse regions of the globe, this collection delves into forty-nine subject areas, demonstrating the complexity of feminist challenges to established knowledge, while also engaging areas of contestation within feminist theory. Demonstrating the interdisciplinary nature of feminist theory, the chapters offer innovative analyses of topics central to social and political science, cultural studies and humanities, discourses associated with medicine and science, and issues in contemporary critical theory that have been transformed through feminist theorization. The handbook identifies limitations of key epistemic assumptions that inform traditional scholarship and shows how theorizing from women's and men's lives has profound effects on the conceptualization of central categories, whether the field of analysis is aesthetics, biology, cultural studies, development, economics, film studies, health, history, literature, politics, religion, science studies, sexualities, violence, or war.

International Migration and Ethnic Relations

International Migration and Ethnic Relations PDF Author: Magnus Dahlstedt
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317655907
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
Each day, in so many aspects of daily life, we are reminded of the significance of migration and ethnicity. This book is a critical contribution to the understanding of the phenomena of migration and ethnicity, from a Swedish vantage point looking outwards towards a European context. It presents current academic debates and gives a theoretical overview of nine key concepts in the field of ethnic and migrations studies, but it also exemplifies how these concepts could be used in analysing specific empirical cases. It explores the following concepts: ethnicity; migration; diaspora; citizenship; intersectionality; racism; right wing populism; social exclusion; and informalisation. The book is interdisciplinary, embracing areas such as labour studies, economic history, ethnicity, business administration, gender studies, literature studies, economics, educational science, social anthropology, social work, sociology and political science.

International Encyclopedia of Human Geography

International Encyclopedia of Human Geography PDF Author:
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0081022964
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 7278

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Book Description
International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, Second Edition, Fourteen Volume Set embraces diversity by design and captures the ways in which humans share places and view differences based on gender, race, nationality, location and other factors—in other words, the things that make people and places different. Questions of, for example, politics, economics, race relations and migration are introduced and discussed through a geographical lens. This updated edition will assist readers in their research by providing factual information, historical perspectives, theoretical approaches, reviews of literature, and provocative topical discussions that will stimulate creative thinking. Presents the most up-to-date and comprehensive coverage on the topic of human geography Contains extensive scope and depth of coverage Emphasizes how geographers interact with, understand and contribute to problem-solving in the contemporary world Places an emphasis on how geography is relevant in a social and interdisciplinary context

Power, Media, Culture

Power, Media, Culture PDF Author: Luis Albornoz
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137540087
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
This book updates and revalidates critical political economy of communication approaches. It is destined to become a work of reference for those interested in delving into debates arising from the performance of traditional and new media, cultural and communication policy-making or sociocultural practices in the new digital landscape.

Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism

Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004291393
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 561

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Book Description
More than 130 years after Karl Marx’s death and 150 years after the publication of his opus magnum Capital: Critique of Political Economy, capitalism keeps being haunted by period crises. The most recent capitalist crisis has brought back attention to Marx’s works. This volume presents 16 contributions that show how Marx’s analyses of capitalism, the commodity, class, labour, work, exploitation, surplus-value, dialectics, crises, ideology, class struggles, and communism, help us to understand the Internet and social media in 21st century digital capitalism. Marx is back! This book is a key resource on the foundations of Marxist Internet and Digital Media Studies.

Globalization and Social Change

Globalization and Social Change PDF Author: Diane Perrons
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415266956
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
Taking a refreshing new perspective on globalization and widening social and spatial inequalities, this significant text is illustrated through a series of case studies linking people in rich and poor countries.