Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
actor-network theory has led the global cities literature to become more sen-
sitive to issues of power and scale. In this light, all cities are global cities in
that they are all enveloped in worldwide networks of goods, people, capital,
and information.
The globalization of low value added services
One feature of postmodern geographies is the persistent decentralization of
low wage, low value added services to the world's periphery, which may be
demonstrated through three sectoral studies of back of
ces, call centers, and
o
ff
shore banks, all of which comprise di
ff
erent facets of one underlying pro-
cess. Despite the di
erences among these industries, they all are essentially
concerned with the processing of standardized information; they all rely
heavily on telecommunications networks, particularly
ff
fiber optic lines; all use
unskilled labor, particularly women; and all of them have decentralized to
low wage, less regulated parts of the planet. Because they necessitate both
human actors (e.g., data entry operators) and nonhuman ones (e.g., extensive
computer equipment), these systems also exemplify actor-networks, albeit a
very di
fi
erent kind than that found in global cities. In contrast to the enduring
geographies of high value added services, in which global cities retain their
hegemony for decades or centuries, the geographies of standardized services
change at warp speed as global capital pits places against one another in a
neoliberal world economy.
Far from resembling the skilled headquarters functions typically clustered
in global cities, back of
ff
ces involve a variety of routine clerical jobs that
revolve largely around data entry, including payroll and billing records, bank
checks, insurance claims, hospital records, airline tickets, and magazine
subscriptions. These types of data exemplify standardized information par
excellence , with geographic and social context mattering little or not at all.
Back o
ce tasks utilize unskilled or semi-skilled labor, primarily women, and
typically operate on a 24-hour-per-day basis. Because the inputs are sent
directly by the client, often by airplane, back of
ces have few of the inter-
fi
firm linkages associated with headquarters activities. The primary locational
requirements are reliable electricity, computer facilities, and high capacity
telecommunications networks.
Historically, back o
ces are located adjacent to headquarters activities
in downtown areas, often in the same building, a proximity necessary to
ensure close management supervision and rapid turnaround of information.
However, increasingly freed from this constraint by the introduction of
digital communications systems, large service
firms—particularly those facing
acute competitive pressures under deregulations, such as banks and airlines—
began to uncouple their back o
fi
ces by relocating them to lower-cost loca-
tions on the urban periphery, often to avail themselves of pliable suburban
female labor forces. At a broader scale, many American
fi
rms began to
relocate their back of
ces out of large metropolitan areas (Warf 1993),
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