Dialectical Meaning of Offshored Work

Miłosz Miszczyński, Ph.D, is an Assistant Professor at Kozminski University, Poland. He conducts research in the fields of critical studies of organisations and sociology of labour. His publications include publications in Organzation, Critical Sociology and European Journal of Cultural Studies.

• AcknowledgementIntroduction: the Post-socialist Workforce in the Global Offshoring Networks1 The Post-socialist Workforce in Global Production2 Offshoring Studies3 Social Reproduction and Offshoring4 Ethnography of Foreign Investment5 The Investor and the Region6 The Structure of this Book1 Romania’s Systemic Transformation: Chaos, Austerity and Imposed Neoliberal Reform1 Ad-hoc Transition (1989–1996)2 The Period of Market Orientation (1996–2004)3 The Period of European Integration (2004–2009)4 Global Economic Crisis and Neoliberal Rule (2009–2014)5 Conclusions2 The Arrival: Global Assemblage of Neoliberal Production1 Nokia Village Plans2 Factory Closure in Germany3 The Opening3 A Journey onto the Shop Floor: Cultural Specificity of the Offshored Plant and Workforce Adaptation1 Joining a Capitalist Workplace2 Cultural Specificity of the Workplace and Worker Socialisation3 Workplace Adaptation4 Cultural Specificity and the Offshored Workplace4 Shop Floor Culture and Routine Production Process1 Lubricating the Taylorist Workplace2 Limiting Control and Political Intimacies at Work3 Epistemic Holes, Humour and Storytelling4 Conclusions5 Familial Involvement in Offshored Labour1 Prior to Investment2 Mutual Dependencies3 Emancipatory Forces4 Intergenerational Exceptionalism5 Mutual Dependency in a Broader Context6 Employee Reactions to the Plant Closure1 The Good Investor’s Bad Decisions2 Social Mobilization3 What the Plant Changed7 Coping with Loss: Local Agency and Offshored Labour1 The Secrecy of the Contract2 Smartphone Controversy3 Romania in the Global Economy4 The New Investor5 Discussion: National Reaction to the Issue of RelocationConclusions: Labour Arbitrage, Modernity and the Realities of Offshored LabourBibliographyIndex