Reengineering India

Work, Capital, and Class in an Offshore Economy

Carol Upadhya

It is a comprehensive anthropological study of the Indian IT industry
It is unique in that it draws on long-term and in-depth ethnographic research inside software organizations and based on extensive interviews with IT professionals and others connected with the industry
It examines the origins of software capital, the shaping of the Indian IT workforce, the new management practices and forms of work introduced in IT workspaces, and the connections between IT and the middle class in an overarching and coherent fashion

Reengineering India

Work, Capital, and Class in an Offshore Economy

Carol Upadhya

Description

The march towards a 'new India' began with its entry onto the global stage as a rising economic power, impelled by liberalization policies and the forces of globalization. The success of Indias information technology (IT) industry symbolizes these larger developments, yet we lack a critical understanding of the wider social and cultural reverberations of this phenomenon. Reengineering India explores India's post-liberalization transformation through the lens of the software industry.

This book views the IT industry as a key site where new identities, aspirations, and social imaginaries are being created and circulated. It examines the origins and organization of software capital, the production of the Indian IT workforce, the introduction of new forms of work and management, and the connections between software and the new middle class. The author argues that the software industry has been central to India's post-liberalization refashioning, yet it remains deeply embedded in older structures of inequality and modes of accumulation.

An anthropological account of the relationship between work, class, capital, and culture in Indias new economy, this book is essential reading for thinking about the future of the post-IT revolution nation.

Reengineering India

Work, Capital, and Class in an Offshore Economy

Carol Upadhya

Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Software Capital and the New India
2. Compiling the Indian IT Workforce
3. In the Software Factory
4. Soft Capitalism Comes to India
5. Encultured Identities, Cultivated Selves
6. Codes of Class
Conclusion: Whatâs New about the âNew Indiaâ?
References
Index
About the Author

Reengineering India

Work, Capital, and Class in an Offshore Economy

Carol Upadhya

Author Information

Carol Upadhya, Professor in the School of Social Sciences, National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru, India.

Carol Upadhya is Professor in the School of Social Sciences, National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru, India.

Reengineering India

Work, Capital, and Class in an Offshore Economy

Carol Upadhya

Reviews and Awards

"Reengineering India's detailed scrutiny of the many facets of life in the IT industry proves an invaluable resource for those interested in IT specifically but also those interested in globalized work-places, post-liberalization India and theories of cultural capital." - Lars Olav Aaberg, The Indian Journal of Labour Economics