Service learning and volunteer tourism draw thousands of students to the Andes each year and offer them opportunities to work and build relationships with local communities. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in Cusco, Peru, where these programs are increasingly combined with second language study (Spanish and/or Quechua) and have become popular study abroad options for North American students. In this talk, Devin will discuss his dissertation research on language learning and volunteering in Cusco which addresses the sociocultural and linguistic impacts of participation in these endeavors and the ways in which students learn and recognize contested language practices in/through their second languages. He will discuss findings from eight weeks of dissertation research in 2015 as well as his plans for 12 months of research beginning in January of 2016.
Devin Grammon is a Ph.D. candidate in the Hispanic Linguistics program in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese at OSU. Devin's academic interests are in sociocultural linguistics, second language studies, and the languages and cultures of Southern Peru. During the past three (Northern Hemisphere) summers, Devin has been in Cusco, Peru, either studying Southern Quechua or conducting research for his dissertation. Earlier this semester, Devin was awarded a Fulbright-Hays DDRA fellowship which will take him back to Cusco in 2016 to conduct a year of fieldwork for his dissertation.
