TEMPORAL POLITICS IN THE BPO INDUSTRY: DISCIPLINE, VULNERABILITY AND NEGOTIATION OF YOUNG WORKERS IN YOGYAKARTA
Politik Waktu dalam Industri BPO: Disiplin, Kerentanan, dan Negosiasi Pekerja Muda di Yogyakarta
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36526/santhet.v10i4.6774Keywords:
Temporal politics, BPO company, digital capitalism, young workersAbstract
The Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry in Indonesia has expanded rapidly alongside the growth of digital companies that rely on standardized and time-based services. In Yogyakarta, this expansion is supported by the availability of young workers and relatively low regional minimum wages, which create flexible yet tightly controlled work environment. This study aims to examine how BPO workers experience time in their daily work and how they negotiate its pressures within digitally managed labor systems. Using a corporate ethnography approach, the research was conducted over five months through participant observation and in-depth interview with nine workers from three BPO companies in Yogyakarta.The findings show that algorithmic management, short-terms contracts, and real-time performance monitoring produce strict temporal discipline that reshape workers daily rhythms and limit control over their own time. Under these conditions, workers develop tactical strategies such as regulating response timing, delaying new interactions, and planning absences in order to cope with pressure and maintain emotional stability. However, these strategies only create limited spaces for negotiation within a broader structure of digital capitalism that perpetuates job insecurity and precarity. This study contributes to the anthropology of work by highlighting how time operates as a mechanism of power in the BPO industry and enriching critical discussions on digital labour in Indonesia.
References
Beer, D. (2018). The quantified self in precarity: Work, technology and what counts. Information, Communication & Society, 21(12), 1779–1784. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2018.1442489
Berlant, L. G. (2012). Cruel optimism. Duke University Press.
Boltanski, L., & Chiapello, E. (2005). The New Spirit of Capitalism. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 18(3/4), 161–188. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-006-9006-9
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
Burawoy, M. (1982). Manufacturing consent: Changes in the labor process under monopoly capitalism. The University of Chicago press.
Cefkin, M. (2009). Ethnography and the corporate encounter: Reflections on research in and of corporations. Berghahn.
Chen, Xing, Liu, Feng, Chen, Xu, & Zeng, Junjie. (2024). Work-Life Balance Experiences of Business Process Outsourcing Employees in a Remote Work-Set Up. Journal of Business and Management Studies, 6(1), 55–96. https://doi.org/10.32996/jbms.2024.6.1.4
Down, S. (2012). A historiographical account of workplace and organizational ethnography. Journal of Organizational Ethnography, 1(1), 72–82. https://doi.org/10.1108/20466741211220679
Faisal, A. (2011). Reviewing Outsourcing Controversy in Indonesia (An Exploratory Study of Human Resources Outsourcing Practice in Semarang City) [Thesis, Diponegoro University]. https://eprints.undip.ac.id/39052/
Fibriani, A. N., Muamilah, H., & Jannah, F. (2024). Analisis Tingkat Kepuasan Karyawan Terhadap Sistem Penghargaan di PT VADS Indonesia Tahun 2024. 8(2).131-140. https://doi.org/10.8734/musytari.v8i2.5558
Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (A. Sheridan, Trans.; Second Vintage Books edition). Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation Of Cultures. Basic Books.
Heath, C., Knoblauch, H., & Luff, P. (2000). Technology and social interaction: The emergence of ‘workplace studies.’ The British Journal of Sociology, 51(2), 299–320. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2000.00299.x
Kalleberg, A. L. (2009). Precarious Work, Insecure Workers: Employment Relations in Transition. American Sociological Review, 74(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/000312240907400101
Kashfitanto, D., & Febriansyah, H. (2023). The Effect of Work Stress and Work Values on Turnover Intention of Generation Z Employees in Call Center Company (Case Study of PT ABC in Java, Indonesia). International Journal of Current Science Research and Review, 06(07). https://doi.org/10.47191/ijcsrr/V6-i7-13
Kitchin, R. (2017). Thinking critically about and researching algorithms. Information, Communication & Society, 20(1), 14–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2016.1154087
Poster, W. R. (2013). Hidden sides of the credit economy: Emotions, outsourcing, and Indian call centers. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 54(3), 205–227. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020715213501823
Rodriguez, R. M. (2010). Migrants for Export: How the Philippine State Brokers Labor to the World. University of Minnesota Press.
Rosa, H. (2010). High-speed Society: Social Acceleration, Power, and Modernity. Penn State Press.
Safitri, W., & Lestari, T. (2024). Pengaruh Fasilitas dan Lingkungan Kerja Terhadap Kinerja Karyawan Contact Center PT. Rajawali Berdikari Indonesia. Jurnal Manajemen dan Administrasi Antartika, 1(4), 136–145. https://doi.org/10.70052/juma.v1i4.476
Sharma, S. (2014). In the meantime: Temporality and cultural politics. Duke University Press.
Srnicek, N. (2019). Platform capitalism (Reprinted). Polity.
Standing, G. (2015). The precariat: The new dangerous class ([Revised ed.], reprinted). Bloomsbury.
Taylor, P., & Bain, P. (2005). ‘India calling to the far away towns’: The call centre labour process and globalization. Work, Employment and Society, 19(2), 261–282. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017005053170
UN.ESCAP. (2023). Trends in social development: The future of work in Asia and the Pacific. https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12870/6586
Zuboff, S. (2023). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. In Social Theory Re-Wired (3rd ed.). Routledge.
