Cybertariats in the export-oriented service sector
The case of call centres in Mexico
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21189869 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mateo Crossa (0000-0002-1595-366X, Instituto Mora, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Publication date | 2025-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Work Organisation Labour & Globalisation (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1745-641X • E-ISSN: 1745-6428 |
| Publisher | Pluto Journals (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.13169/workorgalaboglob.19.3.0002 |
| OpenAlex | W4417347910 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 20 |
This article interrogates the historical and structural conditions that have shaped the transnational reorganisation of labour under late capitalism, with particular attention to the offshoring of US cross-border service outsourcing to Mexico. Focusing on the rapid proliferation of call centres in Mexico – staffed predominantly by deported migrants from the United States, alongside surplus university-educated youth proficient in English – the analysis exposes how restrictive immigration regimes, global wage hierarchies, and platform-mediated managerial practices coalesce to produce a new spatial architecture in a digital labour regime. Drawing on participant observation and centring on the lived experiences of frontline workers, the article demonstrates how digital infrastructures function not only as logistical tools but as mechanisms of control and discipline. These dynamics exemplify the entanglement of migration policy, technological governance, and neoliberal cost-minimisation strategies in forging a flexible, transnational labour regime designed to extract value from Global South workers
Global city · Global South · Immigration · Offshoring · Outsourcing · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Emotional Labor in Professions · Labor Movements and Unions
The Political Economy of Transnational Power and Production
Who's On the Line? Indian Call Center Agents Pose as Americans for U.S.‐Outsourced Firms
“ Where you from ?”
Linguistic globalization and the call center industry
Geographies of production II
Entrapped by the ‘electronic panopticon’? Worker resistance in the call centre
The Reshaping of Mexican Labor Exports under Nafta
Automotive global value chains in Mexico
A borderland analytic
From Paso del Norte to the Borderplex
Labour Regimes and Rural Classes of Labour in the Automotive Industry in Mexico
Work Organization, Control and the Experience of Work in Call Centres
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |