Being Offsite: Indian Perceptions of Place and Self in the Outsourcing Industry in Mumbai

Abstract

Being offsite is based on a fieldwork in India over six months among IT professionals in the offshore outsourcing industry in Mumbai. In this industry a distinction between onsite and offsite is created, where onsite refers to the American or European offices on the one side and offsite refers to the Indian offices on the other side as well as these offices respective employees. The aim of the thesis is to explore what these distinctions mean to the IT professionals in their daily lives working with onsite colleagues and clients. The aim of the project is also to challenge the idea that place doesn t matter anymore with our time s borderless technology that enables communication and co-operation among IT professionals over long distances. In the offshore outsourcing industry distance does matter, however it is the cultural distance between the onsite and offsite that is given the accountability of the challenges that may be faced when outsourcing to India. Efforts of assisting a more efficient co-operation between Western IT professionals and Indian IT professionals by building bridges between the two groups are thus made to develop a cross-cultural understanding at the office. However, many of these cross-cultural trainings - as well as the discourses about outsourcing to India - focuses mainly on the problem of Indian culture in the IT industry. Indian culture thus becomes something that the Indian professionals must unlearn in order to become successful IT professionals, as the Indian culture is considered to be a potential obstacle to an efficient and successful co-operation between onsite and offsite. As being offsite becomes a distance to the West in the offshore outsourcing industry measured by on , near and off in a geographical sense, I argue that offsiteness also may be measured as a distance to the West in a social, economical and cultural sense. This distinction between onsite and offsite further contributes to create a perception of India as an offsite place, not just considering the country s geographical distance to the West, but also it s place in the world as a periphery to the centralized West. I further argue that the distinction between onsite and offsite as a relative distance to the West transcends into the daily lives of the IT professionals as associations with offsiteness and onsiteness are made in their spatial movements through varying degrees of on and off in their working environment, as well as in their daily lives. In comparison to the community outside these onsite zones the Indian IT professionals are more onsite, as they are closer to the West. In comparison to their onsite colleagues visiting the offsite offices however, the IT professionals are always offsite.