Language Put to Work

The Making of the Global Call Centre Workforce

Business & Finance, Career Planning & Job Hunting, Labor, Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Sociology
Cover of the book Language Put to Work by Enda Brophy, Palgrave Macmillan UK
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Enda Brophy ISBN: 9781349952441
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK Publication: August 11, 2017
Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan Language: English
Author: Enda Brophy
ISBN: 9781349952441
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication: August 11, 2017
Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan
Language: English

WINNER of The Gertrude J. Robinson Book Prize, awarded by the Canadian Communication Association, and the Canadian Association of Work and Labour Studies, Book of the Year Award. 

This book examines the striking rise of call centres over the past quarter century through the lens of the resistance and collective organizing generated by workers along the digital assembly lines. Drawing on field research in Atlantic Canada, Ireland, Italy, and New Zealand, Enda Brophy investigates the contested making of the transnational call centre workforce and its integration into the circuits of global capitalism. Moving beyond depictions of call centre labour as either entirely liberated or utterly subordinated, Language Put to Work inquires into the forms of work refusal and insubordination provoked by the spread of these communicative workplaces, including informal strategies of quitting, slacking and sabotage, conventional trade union activity, tactical innovations at the margins of the labour movement, and forms of self-organization forged by workers outside of the established trade union movement. Weaving rich empirical evidence together with political-economic analysis and theories of resistance, this book argues that the submission of language to the production of value in the call centre is a process of proletarianization rather than professionalization, and that the new working class has widely opposed this transformation.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

WINNER of The Gertrude J. Robinson Book Prize, awarded by the Canadian Communication Association, and the Canadian Association of Work and Labour Studies, Book of the Year Award. 

This book examines the striking rise of call centres over the past quarter century through the lens of the resistance and collective organizing generated by workers along the digital assembly lines. Drawing on field research in Atlantic Canada, Ireland, Italy, and New Zealand, Enda Brophy investigates the contested making of the transnational call centre workforce and its integration into the circuits of global capitalism. Moving beyond depictions of call centre labour as either entirely liberated or utterly subordinated, Language Put to Work inquires into the forms of work refusal and insubordination provoked by the spread of these communicative workplaces, including informal strategies of quitting, slacking and sabotage, conventional trade union activity, tactical innovations at the margins of the labour movement, and forms of self-organization forged by workers outside of the established trade union movement. Weaving rich empirical evidence together with political-economic analysis and theories of resistance, this book argues that the submission of language to the production of value in the call centre is a process of proletarianization rather than professionalization, and that the new working class has widely opposed this transformation.

More books from Palgrave Macmillan UK

Cover of the book Performing Governance by Enda Brophy
Cover of the book Migration and Worker Fatalities Abroad by Enda Brophy
Cover of the book Leaders of the Opposition by Enda Brophy
Cover of the book The Palgrave Handbook of Global Citizenship and Education by Enda Brophy
Cover of the book Regionalizing Global Crises by Enda Brophy
Cover of the book The Home Front in Britain by Enda Brophy
Cover of the book At the Crossroads of Post-Communist Modernisation by Enda Brophy
Cover of the book Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark by Enda Brophy
Cover of the book Foucault, the Family and Politics by Enda Brophy
Cover of the book The Politics of Nuclear Energy in China by Enda Brophy
Cover of the book Uncivil Engagement and Unruly Politics by Enda Brophy
Cover of the book Preventing Sexual Violence by Enda Brophy
Cover of the book Culture and Immigration in Context by Enda Brophy
Cover of the book Sovereign Risk and Public-Private Partnership During the Euro Crisis by Enda Brophy
Cover of the book People Management in Turbulent Times by Enda Brophy
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy