Indian Women Working in Call Centers: Sites of Resistance?

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Author(s): Doreen J. Mattingly (San Diego State University, USA)
Copyright: 2012
Pages: 13
Source title: Globalization, Technology Diffusion and Gender Disparity: Social Impacts of ICTs
Source Author(s)/Editor(s): Rekha Pande (University of Hyderabad, India)and Theo van der Weide (Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-0020-1.ch014

Keywords: Computer Science & IT / Global Information Technology / Human Aspects of Technology / Information Science Reference

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Abstract

This chapter draws on recent (2005) interviews with 20 call center workers in the New Delhi metro area to analyze the impact of employment in international call centers for young middle-class Indian women. Providing a wide range of telephone and occasionally Internet services to customers in the US, UK, and Australia, call centers are a booming source of employment for young English-speaking Indians. Roughly half of the growing workforce is female, and the wages are high by Indian standards. Nevertheless, the need to work at night to service customers on other continents creates special hardships and complications, particularly for young women who traditionally would not be allowed to go out at night. While acknowledging the hardships and obstacles presented by the work, this chapter shows that that working in call centers changes the relationships between the young women workers and their parents. Specifically, it argues that young women working in call centers are implicitly rejecting traditional patterns of family control over daughters, and in doing so they are resisting subordination.

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