In the Indian outsourcing industry, employees are expected to be
"dead ringers" for the more expensive American workers they have
replaced--complete with Westernized names, accents, habits, and
lifestyles that are organized around a foreign culture in a distant
time zone. "Dead Ringers" chronicles the rise of a workforce for
whom mimicry is a job requirement and a passion. In the process,
the book deftly explores the complications of hybrid lives and
presents a vivid portrait of a workplace where globalization
carries as many downsides as advantages.
Shehzad Nadeem writes that the relatively high wages in the
outsourcing sector have empowered a class of cultural emulators.
These young Indians indulge in American-style shopping binges at
glittering malls, party at upscale nightclubs, and arrange romantic
trysts at exurban cafes. But while the high-tech outsourcing
industry is a matter of considerable pride for India, global
corporations view the industry as a low-cost, often low-skill
sector. Workers use the digital tools of the information economy
not to complete technologically innovative tasks but to perform
grunt work and rote customer service. Long hours and the graveyard
shift lead to health problems and social estrangement. Surveillance
is tight, management is overweening, and workers are caught in a
cycle of hope and disappointment.
Through lively ethnographic detail and subtle analysis of
interviews with workers, managers, and employers, Nadeem
demonstrates the culturally transformative power of globalization
and its effects on the lives of the individuals at its edges."
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