A Nation on the Line: Call Centers as Postcolonial Predicaments in the Philippines

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Jan M. Padios

A Nation on the Line

Call Centers as Postcolonial Predicaments in the Philippines

Jan M. Padios

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English

Duke University Press
03 April 2018

National liberation & independence, post-colonialism; Sociology: work & labour; Social & cultural anthropology; Postal & telecommunications industries

In 2011 the Philippines surpassed India to become what the New York Times referred to as ""the world's capital of call centers."" By the end of 2015 the Philippine call center industry employed over one million people and generated twenty-two billion dollars in revenue. In A Nation on the Line Jan M. Padios examines this massive industry in the context of globalization, race, gender, transnationalism, and postcolonialism, outlining how it has become a significant site of efforts to redefine Filipino identity and culture, the Philippine nation-state, and the value of Filipino labor. She also chronicles the many contradictory effects of call center work on Filipino identity, family, consumer culture, and sexual politics. As Padios demonstrates, the critical question of call centers does not merely expose the logic of transnational capitalism and the legacies of colonialism; it also problematizes the process of nation-building and peoplehood in the early twenty-first century.

By: Jan M. Padios
Imprint: Duke University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 499g
ISBN: 9780822370475
ISBN 10: 0822370476
Pages: 248
Publication Date: 03 April 2018
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Unspecified

Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1. Listening Between the Lines: Relational Labor, Productive Intimacy, and the Affective Contradictions of Call Center Work 34 2. Contesting Skill and Value: Race, Gender, and Filipino/American Relatability in the Neoliberal Nation-State 63 3 Inside Vox Elite: Call Center Training and the Limits of Filipino/American Relatability 93 4. Service with a Style: Aesthetic Pleasures, Productive Youth, and the Politics of Consumption 131 5. Queering the Call Center: Sexual Politics, HIV/AIDS, and the Crisis of (Re)Production 157 Conclusion 181 Notes 189 Bibliography 213 Index 225

Jan M. Padios is Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Reviews for A Nation on the Line: Call Centers as Postcolonial Predicaments in the Philippines

As an example of the transnational turn in Asian American studies, Padios's book gives us insight into how work is being reinvented, and the ways in which this reinvention has muddled distinctions between the United States and a place like the Philippines. -- Min Hyoung Song * Public Books * Jan M. Padios describes with colorful detail the ways that neoliberalism draws upon Filipino/American relatability to garner profits, cheaply pay Filipinos, and serve U.S.-based customers within the call center industry. -- Giselle Cunanan * Ethnic and Racial Studies * A Nation on the Line is relevant to audiences interested in Filipino diasporic migrations, transnational Filipino identities, and transnational labor studies writ large. The author provides an analysis of the global political economy that echoes other work on the production and management of global Filipino labor; however, this work simultaneously lends a clarity to the subjective identities and affective and relational aspect of labor that has yet to be fully explored among this group of workers. -- Fumilayo Showers * American Journal of Sociology *