Practices of global capital: gaps, cracks and ironies in transnational call centres in India

In this article I document practices of globalization in a newly emerging transnational labour force – call centre workers in New Delhi, India, who provide voice‐to‐voice service to clients dialling toll‐free numbers in North America. Recent theorists have focused on how capitalism is continually under construction, and how heterogeneous groups of workers play active roles in relation to transnational corporate processes. Accordingly, I trace three practices that constitute transnational call centre work –scripting, synchronicity and locational masking – and examine how Indian workers negotiate these practices. I argue that the transnationalization of voice‐to‐voice service work provides the opportunity for Indian workers to construct ‘Americans’ and situate their own jobs within global labour markets. Drawing on interviews with call centre workers, managers and trainers in India, I explore the ways in which analyses of the practices of globalization provides an insight on workers' attempts to enhance their quality of life vis‐à‐vis transnational capitalism.