Examining resistance, accommodation and the pursuit of aspiration in the Indian IT-BPO space: reflections on two case studies

This paper is based on case studies of two organizations: a financial services company located in the United Kingdom and Mumbai, and an India-based information technology (IT) services company. Although they operate in different sectors and have some notable contrasts, both can be seen as typifying aspects of India’s new economy. Our paper explores the lived experience of working in this economy – a perspective which has been relatively neglected in the extant literature. Drawing on Homi Bhabha’s (1994) notions of ambivalence and mimicry, and V.S. Naipaul’s powerful illustrations of these concepts in his fiction and non-fiction works, we report on how respondents talked about their aspirations within India’s emerging economy, and examine their mobilization of particular discursive resources as forms of accommodation and resistance to the demands they face at work.