30 Jan Globalization of Services and the Making of a New Global Service Labor Force in India’s Silicon Valley
Amandeep Sandhu (Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara)
Wednesday, January 30 / 4:00 pm
3041 Humanities and Social Sciences Building
Amandeep Sandhu’s lecture presented his research findings on cultural changes among Indian call center workers performing global service work in Bangalore, India’s Silicon Valley. His lecture suggested that the globalization of services is a second generation globalization that is distinct from the first generation globalization of manufacturing and that produces distinct cultural changes. Indian workers involved in the globalization of services are connected to the global economy at the very level of their consciousness and subjectivity. Their live interactions with customers globally lead these workers to assimilate global modes of being. The tension between these global modes of identity and their local Indian class position identities causes a contradictory class location and consciousness and produces psychological suffering.
Amandeep Sandhu is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is currently completing his dissertation project, which is funded by the University of California Labor and Employment Research Fund Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship.