Travel, transformation, and enlightenment in film: a critical review

The purpose of this review article is to examine theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical bases for integrating travel and tourism and film into critical tourism education, and to suggest examples of film that achieve this integration in classroom settings. These works help viewers understand, among others, the possibilities for and critiques of self-transformation and enlightenment through travel and tourism. Film provides a vehicle for emotional, humanistic accounts, often told from an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary social science perspective. Conversely, critical tourism, based on critical pragmatism, can be used to identify and critique personal transformation as a recognizable travel outcome. Deweyan critical pragmatism can be used to teach reflexivity, or how to reflect, as well as a discursive approach to tourism as students and laypersons discuss these works. The article addresses a growing lack of empathy and desensitization among students and laypersons whose own limited travel experiences, particularly due to post-COVID travel bans, prevents them from grasping the wider spectrum of critical issues related tourism. Finally, the article challenges the dominance of extant pedagogies and their failure for transformative learning, self-critique, and awareness of the condition of others induced by travel or depictions in film.