Dead ringers : how outsourcing is changing the way Indians understand themselves /

Sociologist Nadeem (Lehman College, CUNY) explores the Indian call center industry and its effects on its workers, a topic with relatively little scholarly literature. The book is located within a growing body of scholarship that analyzes globalization through local practices and effects. Nadeem highlights how Indian call center workers are taught to mimic "neutral" US or British accents, in the process acquiring and adapting to the lifestyles of the cultures whose accents they mimic. The book covers a lot of ground, analyzing call center lifestyles in terms of language, time, gender, class, work culture, and shifting notions of morality. This provides rich data on call centers but is also problematic because the book moves too swiftly between themes, giving it a staccato feel and compromising analytical depth. For example, Nadeem fails to clearly define critical concepts such as the middle class. Some of the arguments are generalized to India as a whole, a problematic assumption given India's diversity. Overall, the book is useful to graduate students or faculty interested in how globalization operates at the local level or in the outsourcing industry. The somewhat verbose and slightly dense writing style, along with the need for some familiarity with India, may make the book difficult for undergraduates. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students/faculty/professionals. L. M. Proctor Lawrence University