CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2017
| Author | Ponce, Floramante Sir John Don King Howard III Tandas |
|---|---|
| Title | Reengineering, Resistance, And Reflexivity In Philippine Call Centers: Challenging The Victimized Images Of Agents And Neoliberalism |
| Summary | This study challenges and complicates the dominant literature on the universalized and homogenized outcomes of neoliberalism to its workers as well as the victimized images of call center agents. I employ Ong’s reengineering of the soul, Scott’s everyday resistance, and Giddens’ reflexivity to investigate the dynamics of Filipino agents’ modes of voluntary and mandatory work adaptation as well as practices of resistance and manipulation. All these work practices can be analyzed better by linking them with the neoliberal reengineering processes and technologies of governing imposed by the third party, offshore call center. The thesis’ main data is derived from the narratives of 36 Filipino agent informants; testimonies of call center practitioners (e.g. HR heads, supervisors, and operation managers); and field experiences I got during participant observation in a call center in Metro Manila. I find that the neoliberal reengineering of Filipino agents’ souls is a ‘middling success.’ The neoliberal reengineering is partially successful in imposing neoliberal work value and corporate norms and it is highly successful in shaping the subjectivities of Filipino agents to embrace cosmopolitan practices. The Filipino agents’ resistance as well as their turnover, however, prove the contrary. As I scrutinized their practices of resistance, Filipino agents used them only as ‘urgent’ strategies to survive work and their reasons for practicing them are highly individualized. Though the execution of their resistance contains collective elements such as collective learning and covering-up, nevertheless they neither aim to facilitate social change nor to organize collective resistance in order to alter their life course and work condition. There is a potential for their resistance to develop repertoires of contention, however, for now they only manifest in forms of Scott’s weapons of the weak, a passive-aggressive form of resistance. By weaving their stories of work adaptation, resistance, and manipulation without ignoring the destructive nature of oppression and exploitation, we can appreciate them as reflexive individuals possessing different forms of capital and agentive capacity, not passive reactors to forces overwhelming their life courses and work conditions. |
| Supervisor | Li, Ju; Fabiani, Jean-Louis |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2017/ponce_floramante.pdf |
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