The Importance of Being Nearest: Nearshore Software Outsourcing and Globalization Discourse

In the idea of the “death of distance,” globalization discourse presents a picture of a world of global social and economic integration, declining cultural differentiation, spatial and temporal disembedding of social practices, and the economic primacy of dematerialized knowledge work. Nearshore software outsourcing, a subcategory of offshore software outsourcing in which the development centers are located outside of the outsourcer’s host country, but in the same, or a similar, time-zone, would appear to provide a prime example of this concept. Drawing on evidence from two Caribbean nearshore software development initiatives and interviews with nearshore practitioners, however, this paper suggests that nearshore software outsourcing reflects, and perhaps extends, many of the features of globalization discourse, while at the same time contrasting with it. In particular, the notion that globalization inevitably leads to placelessness and homogeneity, and that the nation state as an influence on economic activity is disappearing, are questioned. Part 6: Globalization, Development, and Space 376