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Appropriating Identity or Cultivating Capital? Global English in Offshoring Service Industries
Author(s) -
Sonntag Selma K.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
anthropology of work review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.151
H-Index - 15
eISSN - 1548-1417
pISSN - 0883-024X
DOI - 10.1525/awr.2005.26.1.13
Subject(s) - indigenization , appropriation , globalization , politics , identity (music) , sociology , offshoring , context (archaeology) , cultural capital , gender studies , political science , political economy , social science , law , anthropology , outsourcing , history , linguistics , aesthetics , philosophy , archaeology
In the popular media, much has been made of the adoption of American identities by Indian nationals working in call centers in urban India. In the transactions between call center workers in India and their American customers, language is often the only conveyor of cultural identity. The implications of this linguistic globalization are drawn out by examining the historical trajectory of the politics of global English in India. I argue that the indigenization of English that has occurred in India represents a shift in the political and cultural contestation over language from the global to the local, so that today the politics of language in India primarily involve contestation between elites and subalterns within India rather than between Indians and a global power. I conclude that the appropriation of American identities by Indian call center workers is mainly for the purpose of cultivating linguistic capital within the Indian context, and does not entail a loss of authenticity or reveal cultural insecurity. More likely, the American customers and media commentators who worry about being duped by Indians faking American accents are the ones who are culturally insecure.