Lives on the Line
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Author Description
The Call Center Industry Is Booming In The Philippines. Around The Year 2005, The Country Overtook India As The World's Voice Capital, And Industry Revenues Are Now The Second Largest Contributor To National Gdp. In Lives On The Line, Jeffrey J. Sallaz Retraces The Assemblage Of A Global Market For Voice Over The Past Two Decades. Drawing Upon Case Studies Of Sixty Filipino Call Center Workers And Two Years Of Fieldwork In Manila, He Illustrates How Offshore Call Center Jobs Represent A Middle Path For Educated Filipinos, Who Are Faced With The Dismaying Choice To Migrate Abroad In Search Of Prosperity Versus Stay At Home As An Impoverished Professional. A Rich Ethnographic Study, This Book Challenges Existing Stereotypes Regarding Offshore Service Jobs And Sheds Light Upon The Reasons That The Philippines Has Become The World's Favored Location For Voice. It Looks Beyond Call Centers And Beyond India To Advance Debates Concerning Global Capitalism, The Future Of Work, And The Lives Of Those Who Labor In Offshored Jobs.
Menrva's Summary
THE THESIS
This book investigates the socio-economic factors that enabled the Philippines to become the global leader in the voice-based call center industry. Jeffrey J. Sallaz, a sociologist, utilizes two years of intensive fieldwork and sixty qualitative case studies to examine the labor conditions of Filipino workers. He argues that these positions function as a critical middle path for educated citizens, offering an alternative to the binary choice between overseas migration and domestic professional stagnation.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- Analysis of the historical development of the Philippine call center industry since 2005.
- Ethnographic data derived from sixty in-depth interviews with call center employees.
- Theoretical frameworks regarding global capitalism and the shifting nature of service-sector labor.
Scope Limits
- The study focuses primarily on voice-based service roles rather than non-voice or back-office outsourcing.
- The research is geographically constrained to the Manila metropolitan area.
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Scholars in labor studies and economic sociology recognize this work as a significant contribution to understanding the human impact of offshore service economies. Readers frequently note the academic rigor of the ethnographic approach, which provides a nuanced view of global labor markets beyond standard economic metrics.
Page Count:
272
Publication Date:
2019-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190630671
ISBN-13:
9780190630676
Business
Economics
Philippines
Sociology
Globalization
Labor Studies
Community Tags
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