Calling for resistance: The political economy of Indian and Canadian call centre industries

Call centres have in the last three decades come to define the interaction between corporations, governments, and other institutions and their respective customers, citizens, and members. From telemarketing to tele-health services, to credit card assistance, and even emergency response systems, call centres function as a nexus mediating technologically enabled labour practices with the commodification of services. Because of the ubiquitous nature of the call centre in post-industrial capitalism, the banality of these interactions often overshadows the nature of work and labour in this now-global sector. Advances in telecommunication technologies and the globalization of management practices designed to oversee and maintain standardized labour processes have made call centre work an international phenomenon. Simultaneously, these developments have dislocated assumptions about the geographic and spatial seat of work in what is defined here as the new international division of knowledge labour. The offshoring and outsourcing of call centre employment, part of the larger information technology and information technology enabled services sectors, has become a growing practice amongst governments and corporations in their attempts at controlling costs. Leading offshore destinations for call centre work, such as Canada and India, emerged as prominent locations for call centre work for these reasons. While incredible advances in technology have permitted the use of distant and “offshore” labour forces, the grander reshaping of an international political economy of communications has allowed for the acceleration of these processes. New and established labour unions have responded to these changes in the global regimes of work by seeking to organize call centre workers. These efforts have been assisted by a range of forces, not least of which is the condition of work itself, but also attempts by global union federations to build a bridge between international unionism and local organizing campaigns in the Global South and Global North. Through an examination of trade union interventions in the call centre industries located in Canada and India, this dissertation contributes to research on post-industrial employment by using political economy as a juncture between development studies, critical communications, and labour studies.

AUSTRALIA’S STRATEGIC CULTURE: An investigation of the concept of strategic culture and its application to the Australian case

The notion that each state in the international system approaches matters of war and peace somewhat differently because they each possess a unique strategic culture is not a new or obscure one – but it nevertheless remains controversial. While some scholars dismiss the utility or practicality of examining states’ cultures when seeking to explain or predict those states’ patterns of strategic decision-making, even amongst those who accept that we should pay attention to cultural differences between states when carrying out strategic analysis there remains a frustratingly eclectic range of offerings from scholars regarding how best to do so. In short, significant uncertainty remains regarding both whether strategic culture should be used as an analytical tool and, if it is so utilized, how one should go about doing so. This thesis therefore explores the concept of strategic culture in great detail, both theoretical and empirical. The opening three chapters examine why the more traditional rationalist/materialistic theories should not exclusively dominate strategic analysis, then the various existing strategic cultural offerings are considered and critiqued and, finally, a new conceptual model for strategic cultural analysis is proposed which draws from the hitherto largely neglected psychological and sociological literature. Both of these fields, it is submitted in Chapter 3, have spent more time and effort developing ways of understanding and analyzing culture than the field of IR has to date, and therefore the models and methods debated and developed in these fields should, it is argued, be ‘imported’ into IR to drive further strategic cultural research. The thesis then moves in the following six chapters to consider Australia’s strategic culture. The purpose of this part of the thesis is two-fold: first, it illustrates how the model offered in Chapter 3 works and, by implication, suggests how scholars may go about applying it to other cases. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the latter six chapters explore the twists and turns of Australia’s substantive strategic decision-making over the course of the last century or more, thereby explaining how Australia’s strategic history can be understood from a cultural perspective.

Livelihood Strategies of Dock Workers in Durban, c. 1900-1959

This dissertation examines the livelihood strategies of African dock workers in Durban, South Africa, between the Anglo-Boer War and the 1959 strikes. These labourers did not conform to common conceptions of radical dock workers or conservative African migrant workers. While Marxist scholars have been correct to stress the working class consciousness of Durban’s dock workers, this consciousness was also more ambiguous. These workers and their leaders displayed a peculiar mix of concern for workers’ issues and defences of the rights and interests of African traders. Many of Durban’s dock workers were not only wage labourers. In fact, only a minority had wages as their only source of income. The Reserve economy played a role in sustaining the consumption levels of their households and, more importantly, more than half of the former dock workers interviewed for this research engaged in some form of commercial enterprise, often based on the pilferage and sale of cargoes. Some also teamed up with township women who sold pilfered goods while the men were at work. This combination of commercial strategies and wage labour has often been overlooked in the literature. By looking at these livelihood strategies, this dissertation considers how rural and urban economies interacted in households’ strategies and reinterprets the reproduction of labour and the household in order to move beyond dichotomies of proletarian versus rural consciousness. The dock workers’ households were neither proletarian households that were forced to reside in the countryside because of apartheid, nor traditional rural homesteads with a missing migrant member. The households were reproduced in three geographically separate spheres of production and consumption, none of which could reproduce the household on its own. These spheres were dependent on each other, but also separate, as physical distance gave the different household members some autonomy. Such multi-nodal households not only bridged the rural and the urban, but equally straddled the formal/informal divide. For many, their employment on the docks made their commercial enterprises possible, which allowed them to retire early from urban wage labour. Consequently, the interests of wage labourers could not be divorced from those of African small-scale entrepreneurs.

Hope in the Most Unlikely Spaces: Thawra and the Contemporary Arabic Novel

In the early to mid-twentieth century, many novelists in the Arab world championed Arab nationalism in their literary reflections on the social and political struggles of their countries, depicting these struggles primarily in terms of spatial binaries that pitted the Arab world against the West, even as they imported Western literary models of progress and modernity into their own work. The intense experience of national awakening that infused their writing often placed these authors at a literary disadvantage, for in their literature, all too often the depth and diversity of Arabic cultures and the complexity of socio-political struggles across the Arab world were undermined by restrictive spatial discourses that tended to focus only on particular versions of Arab history and on a seemingly unifying national predicament. Between the Arab defeat of 1967 and the present day, however, an increasing number of Arab authors have turned to less restrictive forms of spatial discourse in search of a language that might offer alternative narratives of hope beyond the predictable, and seemingly thwarted, trajectories of nationalism. This study traces the ways in which contemporary Arab authors from Egypt and the Sudan have endeavoured to re-think and re-define the Arab identity in ever-changing spaces where elements of the local and the global, the traditional and the modern, interact both competitively and harmoniously. I examine the spatial language and the tropes used in three Arabic novels, viewing them through the lens of thawra (revolution) in both its socio-political and artistic manifestations. Linking the manifestations of thawra in each text to different scenes of revolution in the Arab world today, in Chapter Two, I consider how, at a stage when the Sudan of the sixties was both still dealing with colonial withdrawal and struggling to establish itself as a nation-state, the geographical and textual landscapes of Tayeb Salih‟s Season of Migration to the North depict the ongoing dilemma of the Sudanese identity. In Chapter Three, I examine Alaa iii al-Aswany‟s The Yacoubian Building in the context of a socially diseased and politically corrupt Egypt of the nineties: social, political, modern, historical, local, and global elements intertwine in a dizzyingly complex spatial network of associations that sheds light on the complicated reasons behind today‟s Egyptian thawra. In Chapter Four, the final chapter, Gamal al-Ghitani‟s approach to his Egypt in Pyramid Texts drifts far away from Salih‟s anguished Sudan and al-Aswany‟s chaotic Cairo to a realm where thawra manifests itself artistically in a sophisticated spatial language that challenges all forms of spatial hegemony and, consequently, old and new forms of social, political, and cultural oppression in the Arab world.

The Effects of Several Paper Characteristics and Application Methods on the Sublimation Rate of Cyclododecane

Cyclododecane (CDD) is a waxy, solid cyclic hydrocarbon (C12H24) that sublimes at room temperature and possesses strong hydrophobicity. In paper conservation CDD is used principally as a temporary fixative of water-soluble media during aqueous treatments. Hydrophobicity, ease of reversibility, low toxicity, and absence of residues are reasons often cited for its use over alternative materials although the latter two claims continue to be debated in the literature. The sublimation rate has important implications for treatment planning as well as health and safety considerations given the dearth of reliable information on its toxicity and exposure limits. This study examined how the rate of sublimation is affected by fiber type, sizing, and surface finish as well as delivery in the molten phase and as a saturated solution in low boiling petroleum ether. The effect of warming the paper prior to application was also evaluated. Sublimation was monitored using gravimetric analysis after which samples were tested for residues with gas chromatography-flame ionization detection (GC-FID) to confirm complete sublimation. Water absorbency tests were conducted to determine whether this property is fully reestablished. Results suggested that the sublimation rate of CDD is affected minimally by all of the paper characteristics and application methods examined in this study. The main factors influencing the rate appear to be the thickness and mass of the CDD over a given surface area as well as temperature and ventilation. The GC-FID results showed that most of the CDD sublimed within several days of its disappearance from the paper surface regardless of the application method. Minimal changes occurred in the water absorbency of the samples following complete sublimation.

CHARACTERIZATION OF FILLING MATERIALS FOR EASEL PAINTINGS

Developing appropriate treatments for easel paintings can be complex, as many works are composed of various materials that respond in different ways. When selecting a filling material for these artworks, several properties are investigated including: the need for the infill to react to environmental conditions in a similar manner as the original material; the need for the infill to have good handling properties, adhesion to the original support, and cohesion within the filling material; the ability for the infill to withstand the stress of the surrounding material and; be as flexible as the original material to not cause further damage. Also, changes in colour or mechanical properties should not occur as part of the ageing process. Studies are needed on acrylic-based materials used as infills in conservation treatments. This research examines some of the chemical, physical, and optical changes of eleven filling materials before and after ageing, with the aim to evaluate the overall appropriateness of these materials as infills for easel paintings. The materials examined were three rabbit skin glue (RSG) gessoes, and seven commercially prepared acrylic materials, all easily acquired in North America. Chemical analysis was carried out with Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and X-ray fluorescence (XRF), pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (Py-GC/MS), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Overall the compositions of the various materials examined were found to be in agreement with the available literature and previous research. This study also examined characteristics of these materials not described in previous works and, additionally, presented the compositions and behaviour of several commonly used materials with little literature description. After application of an ageing regimen, most naturally aged and artificially aged samples displayed small changes in gloss, colour, thickness, and diffusive behaviour; however, to evaluate these materials fully mechanical testing and environmental studies should be carried out.

Technology and the architecture of markets: re-configuring the Canadian equity market

This paper examines the relation between technical possibilities, liberal logics, and the concrete reconfiguration of markets. It focuses on the enrolling of innovations in communication and information technologies into the markets traditionally dominated by stock exchanges. With the development of capacities to trade on-screen, the power of incumbent market makers has been challenged as a less stable array of competing quasi-public and private marketplaces emerges. Developing a case study of the Toronto Stock Exchange, I argue that narrative emphasis on the performative power of sociotechnical innovations, the deterritorialisation of financial relations, and the erosion of state capacities needs qualification. A case is made for the importance of developing an understanding of: the spaces of encounter between emerging social technologies and property rights, rules of exchange, and structures of governance; and the interplay of orderings of different institutional composition and spatial reach in the reconfiguration of market architectures. Only then can a better grasp be gained of the evolving dynamics between making markets, the regulatory powers of the state, and their delimitations.

Deep sampling and testing in soft stratified clay

A 37-m thick layer of stratified clay encountered during a site investigation at Swann's Bridge, near the sea-coast at Limavady, Northern Ireland, is one of the deepest and thickest layers of this type of material recorded in Ireland. A study of the relevant literature and stratigraphic evidence obtained from the site investigation showed that despite being close to the current shoreline, the clay was deposited in a fresh-water glacial lake formed approximately 13 000 BP. The 37-m layer of clay can be divided into two separate zones. The lower zone was deposited as a series of laminated layers of sand, silt, and clay, whereas the upper zone was deposited as a largely homogeneous mixture. A comprehensive series of tests was carried out on carefully selected samples from the full thickness of the deposit. The results obtained from these tests were complex and confusing, particularly the results of tests done on samples from the lower zone. The results of one-dimensional compression tests, unconsolidated undrained triaxial tests, and consolidated undrained triaxial compression tests showed that despite careful sampling, all of the specimens from the lower zone exhibited behaviour similar to that of reconstituted clays. It was immediately clear that the results needed explanation. This paper studies possible causes of the results from tests carried out on the lower Limavady clay. It suggests a possible mechanism based on anisotropic elasticity, yielding, and destructuring that provides an understanding of the observed behaviour.Key words: clay, laminations, disturbance, yielding, destructuring, reconstituted.