Talking class, talking race: language, class, and race in the call center industry in South Africa

Abstract

Against a backdrop of declining manufacturing employment, this article uses a study of the call center industry to argue that English language proficiency is central to new service jobs in post-apartheid South Africa. Drawing on research in Durban, we in this study show that access to call center work—especially the highest paid niches—is heavily mediated by English language skills generally attainable only at the most elite high schools. In doing so, we argue that access to English-medium education can challenge racial disadvantage, but simultaneously that English can help to consolidate white privilege through the continued association of a ‘prestigious’ accent with whiteness. The study accordingly reveals the importance of language in the changing intersectionality of race and class and, in doing so, underlines the value of social and cultural perspectives in labor geography.

Dans le contexte d'un secteur secondaire en déclin, cet article départ d'une étude de l'industrie du centre d'appels pour soutenir que la compétence en langue anglaise est d'une importance primaire dans l'industrie du service dans l'Afrique du Sud après l'apartheid. En tirant sur les recherches menées à Durban, l'article démontre que l'accès au travail dans un centre d'appels – surtout pour les couches les plus élevées – n'est accessible qu'à travers les compétences en anglais qui elles-mêmes ne peuvent être acquises que dans les meilleurs établissements scolaires. En faisant ainsi, l'article soutien l'argument que l'accès à l'éducation en langue anglaise peut contester l'inégalité raciale mais la langue anglaise risque en même temps de consolider le privilège blanc à cause d'une association continue d'un accent « prestigieux » avec la blancheur. L'étude révèle ainsi l'importance de la langue pour les études qui examine le croisement changeant de la race et de la classe et souligne ainsi la valeur des perspectives sociales et culturelles dans la géographie du travail.

En pleno de la decadencia del empleo de fabricas, este articulo utiliza un estudio de la industria de los call centers para discutir que la competencia en Ingles es fundamental para los trabajos de servicio nuevos en post-apartheid Sudáfrica. Llevando de investigaciones en Durban, el articulo muestra que acceso a trabajo en los call centers – particularmente los nichos mejor pagados – está mediado por habilidades en Inglés que generalmente están alcanzables solamente en los colegios más elites. Al hacer esto, el articulo se discute que acceso a educación mediano de Inglés puede desafiar la desventaja racial, pero al mismo tiempo Inglés puede consolidar el privilegio de la blancura por la asociación constante de un acento ‘prestigioso’ con la blancura. El estudio se revela la importancia de idioma en la interseccionalidad cambiante de raza y clase y, al hacer esto, subraya el valor de perspectivas sociales y culturales en geografía del trabajo.

Keywords:

• South Africa
• call centers
• class
• language
• labor geography
• intersectionality

Keywords:

• Afrique du Sud
• centres d'appels
• classe
• langue
• géographie du travail
• intersectionnalité

Keywords:

• Sudáfrica
• call centers
• clase
• idioma
• geografía del trabajo
• interseccionalidad

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Chris Benner for his generous advice on the call center industry in South Africa, the workers and managers who agreed to be interviewed, the training company which allowed participant observation, and Professor Phil Hubbard and the anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments.

Notes

1. By the end of the apartheid era, state policy had left four widely used racialized categories: ‘African,’ ‘white,’ ‘Indian,’ and ‘colored.’ In everyday speech and some written texts, the word ‘Black’ can be used in preference to ‘African.’ However, since ‘Black’, especially after the Black Consciousness movement in the 1970s, also refers to all people of color, we use (with reservations) the four aforementioned categories. We use scare quotes conservatively to improve the article's readability and capitalize only ‘African’ and ‘Indian’ since they refer to places.

2. It is worth, however, flagging very briefly one issue that particularly strikes us as demanding separate research: why only slightly more women than men, 58 percent (Benner, Lewis and Omar 2007), are employed in the call center industry in South Africa. It has long been noted that service industries require ‘feminine’ traits of care and communication style and employ more women (e.g. McDowell 2009). However, compared to other settings, the feminization of the industry in South Africa exists to a lesser extent: for instance, in the UK approximately 70 percent of call center workers are women (Cameron 2005). In South Africa, this might be because men in this English-intensive industry are positioned as ‘educated’ and ‘middle class,’ and therefore not feminized in as negative way as they are elsewhere. These questions are all the more relevant because there are examples of how men can struggle to adapt to this service environment. Talking about her experience working in the industry, Motseke (2009: 52) relays how during the recruitment process some employees failed the oral exam because of their poor English. She says that ‘One of them was a former soccer player, who was so upset by failing the oral that he went straight home after hearing the news, and left people who were in his lift club behind.’ Everyone knew that the soccer player did not speak English very well and she quotes one of the coaches talking about this man: ‘You people must understand the situation; he has a house, a wife and child. This was a chance for him to provide for them. Phela (just think) we are not all in the same situation. All the skills he needed before this was in his legs, he needed no English, pronunciation, spelling or whatever. It must be too much for him to think that he can't make even this work’.

3. http://www.bizworks.co.za/index.php?option = com_content&view = article&id = 57:location&catid = 36:why&Itemid = 72 (accessed 1 July 2010).

4. Agencies either employ workers themselves and place them at call centers; recruit workers for direct employment by a company; or undertake a combination of both strategies.

5. We do not have specific figures, however, demonstrating that white call center workers are employed at higher status (and higher paying) call centers. However, it appeared from briefly touring seven call centers (which generally represented lower than country-wide pay and status) that no whites were employed at these institutions, below management levels. In addition, no white people attended the training course which tended to be linked to low-to-medium status employers. We also know nationally that ‘White women seem to be particularly over represented at team leader and management levels in the industry, with white women comprising nearly 40 percent of all managers’ (Benner, Lewis and Omar 2007: 18).