Cybertariats in the export-oriented service sector: The case of call centres in Mexico

This article interrogates the historical and structural conditions that have shaped the transnational reorganisation of labour under late capitalism, with particular attention to the offshoring of US cross-border service outsourcing to Mexico. Focusing on the rapid proliferation of call centres in Mexico – staffed predominantly by deported migrants from the United States, alongside surplus university-educated youth proficient in English – the analysis exposes how restrictive immigration regimes, global wage hierarchies, and platform-mediated managerial practices coalesce to produce a new spatial architecture in a digital labour regime. Drawing on participant observation and centring on the lived experiences of frontline workers, the article demonstrates how digital infrastructures function not only as logistical tools but as mechanisms of control and discipline. These dynamics exemplify the entanglement of migration policy, technological governance, and neoliberal cost-minimisation strategies in forging a flexible, transnational labour regime designed to extract value from Global South workers.