Indian call center workers: pioneers of a global middle class

This chapter explores how working in transnational business processes has impacted the social attitudes of Indian call center workers. Based on a discussion on the findings of the author's survey and interview research, the chapter assesses the extent to which this cohort identifies with a global consuming culture, what frictions arise from the interplay of Indian and Western values at work and at home, and how they characterize their relationship with the transnational economy. Consumerism did play an important part in most workers' lives, although this tended to be planned and directed to large purchases on a car and house, rather than on fashion accoutrements. Social values were markedly more liberal even than those of other affluent urban youth, and attitudes to globalization were overall extremely positive. Respondents were likely to perceive themselves as at least the social equal of ..