Beneath the Night’s Veil
Discover the winning 2026 project "Beneath the Night’s Veil: Gendered Labour and Everyday Resistance among Egyptian Female Call Centre Workers" from the Louis Dumont Fund, which supports research in social anthropology.
This project examines outsourced digital labour in Egyptian call centres within global value chains, with a particular focus on the lived experiences of female workers. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, it explores how global market demands–such as night shifts serving European markets–interact with local gender norms, social reproduction, and moral expectations. The research highlights everyday practices of negotiation, adjustment, and resistance, showing how workers actively shape the boundaries of acceptable work within contemporary digital capitalism.
Yizhen Wang
Yizhen Wang is a PhD candidate in sociology and anthropology at Université Paris Cité (CESSMA). Her research focuses on digital labour, global value chains, and gendered work in the context of outsourced customer service. She is currently conducting ethnographic fieldwork in Cairo on Egyptian female call centre workers. Her work explores the intersections of digital capitalism, labour, and everyday forms of resistance.
