In two places at once: The racialization of affective labour in the global call centre industry

Abstract

The rise of the outsourced call centre industry has proved lucrative for transnational corporations in a postmodern society, where affective labour is a dominant and productive force and work is fragmented across continents. This industry has established itself in countries in the Global South, where millions of workers are given the opportunity to engage in the information economy as a foundational labour force – engaging in forms of affective and intimate labour as they try to mediate the concerns of callers from the Global North. This literature review seeks to investigate the racialization of affective labour within the outsourced call centre industry, as workers seek to mediate the whims and wishes of their clients while upholding the illusion that they live and work next door. First, this review uses Hardt’s framework for affective labour and Lee’s conceptualization of affective capitalism to establish a historical context in which this industry and these labour processes exist. Ahmed’s study of how hate flows between bodies through affective economies is then considered when looking at the tenuous relationship between racialized call centre workers and their callers and clients. These concepts are then used in conjunction with studies on the Philippine and Indian call centre industries to further examine how techniques like identity management and accent neutralization seek to erase the racialized nature of these workers to foster environments of familiarity for their callers.