In an Outpost of the Global Information Economy: Work and Workers in IndiaÆs Outsourcing Industry

While much has been written on the growth of information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services in India, little is known about the people who work in these industries, about the nature of the work itself, and about its wider social and cultural ramifications. The papers in this collection combine empirical research with theoretical insight to fill this gap and explore questions about the trajectory of globalization in India. The themes covered include: (a) sourcing and social structuring of the new global workforce; (b) the work process, work culture, regimes of control and resistance in IT-enabled industries; (c) work, culture and identity; (d) nations, borders and cross-border flows.

Carol Upadhya is Fellow at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India. Her research interests focus on contemporary Indian society and culture, globalisation, economic anthropology, the history of anthropology and sociology in India, and anthropological theory. Her most recent work has been on work, workers and entrepreneurs in the Indian information technology industry. Earlier, she has written on the social impact of the Green Revolution and the emergence of a new business class in coastal Andhra Pradesh.

A.R. Vasavi is Professor at the Social of Social Sciences, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore. Her earlier research work focused on the sociology of India and she is the author of a book, Harbingers of Rain: Land and Life in South India (1999). In addition to coordinating a project on elementary education in Karnataka, she is working on an edited volume of translations of Kannada writings on society and culture and a volume of her collected writings on agrarian change, sociology of education and the new cultural economies of globalising India.