Twelfth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

The paper focuses on the life, working conditions, and urban experience of support-service workers in the Information Technology (IT) sector of India: the janitors, security guards, fast food delivery service professionals, and car pool drivers who work in and around technology parks that develop software applications for a global market. The common experiences of these employees are migration from rural contexts to a radically modern employment setting, where they work long hours with minimal benefits in informal conditions that often violate basic labour laws. Using quantitative and qualitative data analysis the paper describes the nature of the labour these workers are engaged in and their living conditions in relation to the globalized Indian IT industry and the digital urban space. At the end, the paper interrogates the following questions - how does most of the support-service workers with a traditional upbringing negotiate their rural identities with the homogenizing effects of globalization in an alienating urban context? How do the workers make sense of the ideas of freedom, individualism, flexibility, and innovation of the digital society? Is there a possibility of the formation of class consciousness among these workers?