ReenaPatel

Dr. Reena Patel

Expert on Global Labour Relations

Feminist scholar Dr. Reena Patel is an expert researcher whose focus lies on global labour relations with the area of study specific to India, and IT development. Dr. Patel has received awards for her work on women’s employment in the call center industry at both national and regional conferences, and her work has been published in Information Technologies and International Development (MIT Press) and ACME – An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies. Dr. Patel’s first publication, Working the Night Shift: Women in India’s Call Center Industry, was published by Stanford University Press in March 2010.


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Reena Patel, Ph.D., is a feminist scholar whose research focuses on global labour relations with the area of study specific to India, and IT development.

Dr. Patel has received awards for her work on women’s employment in the call center industry at both national and regional conferences such as the Association of American Geographers. Funding for her research was provided for by grants from the National Science Foundation, American Association of University Women, National Security Education Program, and Huston Endowment President's Excellence Scholarship. Dr. Patel’s work has been published in Information Technologies and International Development (MIT Press) and ACME – An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies.

Raised in Massachusetts, Dr. Patel is a first-generation American from an Indian family. After graduating from the University of Massachusetts at Boston with a business degree, she went on to work in San Francisco and thereafter Hawaii. Dr. Patel then served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ghana on an IT development project funded by USAID. Her experience in the Peace Corps was pivotal in her decision to pursue a career in the Foreign Service, and continue her groundbreaking research.

After returning from Ghana, Dr. Patel attended graduate school and completed an MS in Technology from Arizona State University, and a Ph.D. in Geography from The University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Patel’s most recent project— Working the Night Shift: Women in India’s Call Center Industry— was published by Stanford University Press in March 2010.

  • Working
    March 2010

    Working the Night Shift

    Relatively high wages and the opportunity to be part of an upscale, globalized work environment draw many in India to the call center industry. At the same time, night shift employment presents women, in particular, with new challenges alongside the opportunities. This book explores how beliefs about what constitutes "women's work" are evolving in response to globalization. Working the Night Shift is the first in-depth study of the transnational call center industry that is written from the point of view of women workers. It uncovers how call center employment affects their lives, mainly as it relates to the anxiety that Indian families and Indian society have towards women going out at night, earning a good salary, and being exposed to western culture. This timely account illustrates the ironic and, at times, unsettling experiences of women who enter the spaces and places made accessible through call center work.



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Working

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