David H. Hanks is a Ph.D. Candidate in Educational Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. His dissertation research project, entitled “Eat, Pray, Love, Speak: The Commodification of Language Education for Tourism in Bali,” is supported by the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship and affiliated with the Fakultas Ilmu Budaya and Pusat Unggulan Pariwisata at Udayana University in Denpasar, Bali.

David’s research comprises a year-long ethnography of language policy focusing primarily on one commercial Indonesian language school in the rapidly developing tourist economy of Ubud, Bali. His project aims to contribute to a better understanding of both how the commodification of language education for tourist consumption works to regulate foreign tourist-students’ perceptions of their place in Ubud, Bali, and Indonesia, and what material implications this has for Balinese society as these kinds of students encroach on previously inaccessible socioeconomic domains through language study in a community where accelerating economic development has already begun to upend many longstanding notions of social identity.