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Thinking Allowed: Outsourced Cultures - Happiness Letters

09/03/2011

Outsourced Cultures - Happiness Letters

BBC Radio 4 - Thinking Allowed, Outsourced Cultures - Happiness Letters

How answering calls will change your life: the cultural impact of call centres in India.

Call centre workers in India are trained to emulate their callers. Laurie hears how this leads to a parallel hybrid culture of westernised names and habits in India.

In the Indian call centre or 'outsourcing' industry, workers are trained to emulate the American or British workers which they have replaced. They change their names, take on western accents and develop lifestyles organised around a foreign culture in a distant time zone. Laurie Taylor is joined by Henrietta Moore to talk to Shehzad Nadeem about his new study into the hybrid culture these Asian employees have created.
Also on the programme the writer Marek Kohn joins Laurie to discuss the Thinking Allowed audience's spirited response to Pascal Bruckner's indictment of the culture of happiness. 
Producer: Charlie Taylor.

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