Labour Geographies of India's New Services: The Working Lives of Agents in the ITES-BPM Sector

印度新服务的劳动力地理：ITES-BPM 部门代理人的工作生活

• 批准号: ES/T009233/1
• 负责人: Aditya Ray
• 金额: $ 11.15万
• 依托单位: The Open University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2019 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FT009233%2F1
• 关键词: Labour; Geographies; India; New; Services

Whilst India's 'international-facing' call centre workforce, a key 'voice-based' segment of the IT-enabled services/ Business Process Managmet (ITeS/ BPM) sector, has been the subject of focus in many studies researching the country's growth as the 'world's back-office', not much is known about the workforce that serves the growing appetite for similar services in its domestic market. Indeed, India's diverse and multi-lingual 'domestic-facing' call-centre industry is increasingly providing employment opportunities to young people across new urban-regional geographies, specifically in some of the smaller ('Tier-2 and Tier-3') urban centres. However, there is a general lack of scholarship on this fast-expanding workforce, which is quite unlike the 'English-speaking elite' that dominates employment in the 'transantional' ITeS-BPM economy. This lack of knowledge prevents us from gaining a holistic understanding of new forms of work, labour and livelihoods that are constitutive of growth and development in the fast-changing socio-economic context of India. To address this marked gap in our knowledge and build a more integrative understanding of contemporary transformations in work and labour in developing economies, my PhD research explored different aspects of domestic call centre agents' working-lives in Pune city - a fast-emerging 'Tier-2' metropolis and a ITeS-BPM hub in India. Adopting a qualitative 'ethnographic case-study' approach, my research drew from participant observations, site-visits, and more than 100 in-depth interviews in Pune between November 2015 and October 2016. Based on the combined analysis of the data, my research showed how domestic call centres constituted sites of aspiration for the moderately educated youth from lower-middle class backgrounds, many of whom demonstrated an active espousal of this form of employment and contest mainstream assertions of their overall powerlessness and lack of choice in work or role selection. Second, the research tackled ideas of 'professionalism' in domestic call centres, revealing the different ways in which these notions were transmitted and imbibed during skills-trainings and task-performance on the actual call centre floor. Relying on observations and workers' own narratives, the research here demonstrated how firm-enforced ideas of professionalism 'from above' got regularly challenged and reworked 'from below' by workers. Finally, the research explored the wide diversity in domestic call centre workers' labour market experiences - the 'hyphenated' nature of their employment pathways and the cross-sector career staircases that some workers forged, highlighting the role of workers' own agency in these experiences. Overall, my research findings provided a rich representation of the diversity of ordinary working-life and everyday agency of 'low-end' new services workers in India, highlighting instances when it enables upward social mobility, but also showcased occasions when it got constrained. In doing so my research extended the 'hybrid' (economic/ development) geographies agenda, seeking to at once 'spatialise' and 'humanise' contemporary experiences of precarity and precarious work from the standpoint of under-explored and/or 'out-of-the-way' places in the 'emerging' global South. The ESRC fellowship will seek to build on and extend this research along with enhancing the skills I developed during my PhD, in preparation for an academic career.

尽管印度的“国际面向国际”呼叫中心劳动力是IT启用服务/业务流程管理（ITES/ BPM）领域的基于语音的关键”部分，但在许多研究该国成长的研究中一直是重点的主题“世界后台”，对劳动力的了解不多，这为在国内市场上提供类似服务的需求不断增长。的确，印度的多元化和多语言的“面向国内”呼叫中心行业越来越多地为新的城市区域区域的年轻人提供就业机会，特别是在一些较小的（'Tier-2和Tier-3）Urban中中心。但是，对于这个快速扩张的劳动力，普遍缺乏奖学金，这与“讲英语的精英”完全不同，该劳动力在“传统” ITES-BPM经济中主导了就业。缺乏知识阻止我们对印度快速变化的社会经济环境中增长和发展的新形式，劳动和生计的新形式，劳动和生计获得整体理解。为了解决我们知识的这一明显差距，并建立了对发展中经济体中工作和劳动力转型的当代转变的更一体化的理解，我的博士研究探索了国内呼叫中心代理在浦那市的工作生活的各个方面-2'大都市和印度的ITES-BPM枢纽。在2015年11月至2016年10月之间，我的研究采用了定性的“人种学案例研究”方法，从参与者的观察，现场访问和浦那进行了100多次深度访谈。根据数据的综合分析，我的研究展示了国内呼叫中心如何构成来自中低级背景的受过中等教育的年轻人的愿望的地点，其中许多人表现出对这种就业形式和竞赛主流主张的积极主张。其次，该研究解决了国内呼叫中心的“专业人士”的想法，揭示了在实际呼叫中心层面的技能培训和任务绩效期间传播和吸收这些观念的不同方式。依靠观察和工人自己的叙述，这里的研究证明了从上面的“经常受到挑战和重做”的企业强制性的专业思想。最后，这项研究探讨了国内呼叫中心工人劳动力市场经验的广泛多样性 - 其就业途径的“连字符”性质以及一些工人锻造的跨部门职业阶梯，突出了工人自己代理在这些经验中的作用。总体而言，我的研究结果为印度的“低端”新服务工人的普通工作生活和日常代理的多样性提供了丰富的代表性，强调了它可以实现向上的社会流动性的情况，但在受到限制的情况下也展示了这种情况。在这样做的过程中 - “新兴”全球南方的“路”。 ESRC奖学金将寻求基础并扩展这项研究，并增强我在博士学位期间发展的技能，为学术生涯做准备。

项目成果

Judith Bessant, The Great Transformation: History for a Techno-Human Future

朱迪思·贝桑特，《伟大的变革：科技人类未来的历史》

• DOI: 10.1177/1024529420905276
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: Competition & Change
• 影响因子: 3.9
• 作者: Ray A

Professionalism as Skill: The Social Construction of Worker Identity in India's New Services

专业精神作为技能：印度新服务中工人身份的社会建构

• 期刊: Third World Quarterly
• 影响因子: 2
• 作者: Ray A

Coping with crisis and precarity in the gig economy: 'Digitally organised informality', migration and socio-spatial networks among platform drivers in India

应对零工经济中的危机和不稳定：印度平台驱动者中的“数字化组织的非正规性”、移民和社会空间网络

• DOI: 10.1177/0308518x231220296
• 发表时间: 2024
• 期刊: Economy and Space
• 作者: Ray A

Book Review: Enda Brophy, Language Put to Work: The Making of the Global Call Centre Workforce

书评：Enda Brophy，《语言投入工作：全球呼叫中心劳动力的打造》

• DOI: 10.1177/0950017020913226
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: Work, Employment and Society
• 作者: Ray A

Professionalism as a soft skill: the social construction of worker identity in India's new services economy

专业精神作为软技能：印度新服务经济中工人身份的社会建构

• DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2023.2223133
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Third World Quarterly
• 影响因子: 2
• 作者: Ray A