Invisible Bodies and Disembodied Voices? Identity Work, the Body and Embodiment in Transnational Service Work
基于印度两家全球外包公司的民族志研究，分析跨国呼叫中心员工如何通过身体规训（如姿势、着装、声音调节）和具身想象来构建身份，揭示身体在全球服务工作中的核心作用。
This article explores the linkages between identity work, the body and embodiment in transnational call centres. Identity work, defined as the masking of national identity to imply proximity to the western client, provides an opportunity for the analyst to examine workplace embodiment in a global context. Qualitative data from an ethnographic study of two global outsourcing firms in India (2010–2012) explicated these processes. Narrative accounts suggest that call centre workers are routinely made aware of the body as a target of discipline, for instance in training; by working on their own bodies (including posture, dress, voice modulation and other forms of body regulation); by working on the bodies of others (through voice‐based interactions) and by using embodied images of Americans to contextualize the service provided. In this way, the western client is visualized by the Indian call worker through corporeal imaginaries that concomitantly construct, subvert and resist the West‐Rest dichotomy in service relations. Far from being disembodied, this study demonstrates that the body is central to global service work.