Normal view MARC view ISBD view

Global "body shopping" : an Indian labor system in the information technology industry / Xiang, Biao

By: Biao XiangContributor(s): Biao XiangMaterial type: Text

TextPublisher number: :International Book Distributors | :Flat No 17, Prakash Apartment 4405/2, 5 Ansari Road Darya Ganj New Delhi Series: In-formation seriesPublication details: New .Jersey . : Princeton University Press, ©2007Description: xxii, 181p. 24cmISBN: 9780691118529Subject(s): Economics | Labor economics | Electronic data processing personnel -- India | India -- Emigration and immigration | SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Anthropology -- Cultural | Electronic data processing personnel | Labor mobility | Emigration and immigration | Labor mobility | Fachkraft | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- LaborDDC classification: 331.1279 BIA

Contents:

Prologue: A stranger's adventure -- Introduction -- The global niche for body shopping -- Producing IT people in Andhra Pradesh -- Selling "bodies" and selling jobs -- Business of "branded labor" in Sydney -- Agent chains and benching -- Compliant bodies? -- The world system of body shopping -- The "Indian triangle" in the global IT industry -- The remembered fieldwork sites: impressions and images.

Summary: How can America's information technology (IT) industry predict serious labor shortages while at the same time laying off tens of thousands of employees annually? The answer is the industry's flexible labor management system--a flexibility widely regarded as the modus operandi of global capitalism today. Global "Body Shopping" explores how flexibility and uncertainty in the IT labor market are constructed and sustained through concrete human actions. Drawing on in-depth field research in southern India and in Australia, and folding an ethnography into a political economy analysis, Xiang Biao offers a richly detailed analysis of the India-based global labor management practice known as "body shopping." In this practice, a group of consultants--body shops--in different countries works together to recruit IT workers. Body shops then farm out workers to clients as project-based labor; and upon a project's completion they either place the workers with a different client or "bench" them to await the next placement. Thus, labor is managed globally to serve volatile capital movement. Underpinning this practice are unequal socioeconomic relations on multiple levels. While wealth in the New Economy is created in an increasingly abstract manner, everyday realities--stock markets in New York, benched IT workers in Sydney, dowries in Hyderabad, and women and children in Indian villages--sustain this flexibility

Tags from this library: No tags from this library for this title. Log in to add tags.

Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)

Holdings ( 1 )
Title notes ( 2 )
Comments ( 0 )

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Books	SNU LIBRARY	331.1279 BIA (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan		28115

Total holds: 0

Prologue: A stranger's adventure --
Introduction --
The global niche for body shopping --
Producing IT people in Andhra Pradesh --
Selling "bodies" and selling jobs --
Business of "branded labor" in Sydney --
Agent chains and benching --
Compliant bodies? --
The world system of body shopping --
The "Indian triangle" in the global IT industry --
The remembered fieldwork sites: impressions and images.

How can America's information technology (IT) industry predict serious labor shortages while at the same time laying off tens of thousands of employees annually? The answer is the industry's flexible labor management system--a flexibility widely regarded as the modus operandi of global capitalism today. Global "Body Shopping" explores how flexibility and uncertainty in the IT labor market are constructed and sustained through concrete human actions. Drawing on in-depth field research in southern India and in Australia, and folding an ethnography into a political economy analysis, Xiang Biao offers a richly detailed analysis of the India-based global labor management practice known as "body shopping." In this practice, a group of consultants--body shops--in different countries works together to recruit IT workers. Body shops then farm out workers to clients as project-based labor; and upon a project's completion they either place the workers with a different client or "bench" them to await the next placement. Thus, labor is managed globally to serve volatile capital movement. Underpinning this practice are unequal socioeconomic relations on multiple levels. While wealth in the New Economy is created in an increasingly abstract manner, everyday realities--stock markets in New York, benched IT workers in Sydney, dowries in Hyderabad, and women and children in Indian villages--sustain this flexibility

There are no comments on this title.

to post a comment.