Answer the Call

Aimee Carrillo Rowe is associate professor of communication studies at California State University, Northridge.

• ContentsPreface: On the GroundAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Answering the Call1. The Rhythm of Ambition: Power Temporalities and the Production of the Call Center Agent in U.S. Popular Culture2. “I Used to Call Myself ‘Elvis’”: Suspended Mobilities in Indian Call Centers3. “I Interact with People from All Over the World”: The Politics of Virtual Citizenship4. “I’m Going to Sing It the Way Eminem Sings It”: India’s Network GeographyConclusion: Returning the Call NotesBibliographyIndex

"Answer the Call takes on the investigation of call centers in India and uses that case study to help us to theorize, in more supple and nuanced ways, the multiple shifts in consciousness and social imaginaries that contemporary globalizing forces enable." -Jane Desmond, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign"This engagingly written book is an innovative analysis of the work that is done in call centers in India. The authors offer a careful academic examination of the time-virtual space issues connected to workers at these centers by asking readers to think about call-center work as a form of migration. The book draws on a number of disparate academic areas, demonstrating the strengths and necessity of interdisciplinary thinking in the social sciences. Readers will never think about call centers in the same way again." -Kum-Kum Bhavnani, University of California, Santa Barbara "A very relevant and timely work that addresses the issues of inclusion and exclusion in relation to globalization."-CHOICE "The persistence of call centers and India’s active participation in the global market make Answer the Call highly relevant for understanding of these communities."-Oral History Review"An important inquiry into how conceptions of national identity, the nation-state, and the borders between them are still present and defended in a globalized context."-Pacific Affairs