A Nation on the Line

A NATION ON THE LINE is an ethnographic study of the call center industry in the Philippines and of its workforce composed of young, largely college-educated Filipinos. Padios merges several lines of inquiry about Pacific transnationalism, about the role of affective labor in global markets, and about critique of Filipino exploitation by the United States through economic and military power since independence-- in order to consider how post-colonial and post-industrial changes in the Philippines’ role in global capitalism and culture are brought to bear in everyday life. Padios argues that the call center industry serves as a rich case-study for how Filipinos work within hegemonic dynamics of relational service and an understanding of American consumer culture in ways that figure Filipinos' sense of identity and aspirations at the national and individual levels

The production of a cause for activism in Argentina:Labour organization in call centers

This paper focuses on activist labor organizing in call centers in Argentina. Following a strong tradition in anthropology that has debated the nature of resistance, it discusses previous explanations for labor organizing in call centers, critiquing the common assumption that labor conditions, work processes, and the relations that take place on the shop floor constitute the seed from which forms of resistance, protest, or activism progressively emerge. Instead, this paper describes the relations, practices, and tensions through which multiple actors came together to turn call center working conditions into a cause for political action in Argentina and the collaborations that made that process possible. Based on fieldwork with call center activists between 2012 and 2013, this paper reconstructs the forms of collective organization that established the problem of poor working conditions in call centers as a cause for political action.Fil: Wolanski, Sandra Ileana. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. Instituto de Ciencias Antropológicas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

A Nation on the Line

A NATION ON THE LINE is an ethnographic study of the call center industry in the Philippines and of its workforce composed of young, largely college-educated Filipinos. Padios merges several lines of inquiry about Pacific transnationalism, about the role of affective labor in global markets, and about critique of Filipino exploitation by the United States through economic and military power since independence-- in order to consider how post-colonial and post-industrial changes in the Philippines’ role in global capitalism and culture are brought to bear in everyday life. Padios argues that the call center industry serves as a rich case-study for how Filipinos work within hegemonic dynamics of relational service and an understanding of American consumer culture in ways that figure Filipinos' sense of identity and aspirations at the national and individual levels