Bridging disciplinary perspectives on transformation: Epistemologically evaluating liminality and transformative learning

Transformative tourism has become a key research topic, with Turner's anthropological liminality and Mezirow's educational transformative learning theory being central frameworks. This essay clarifies these approaches, analyzing their strengths, limitations, and interplay to enhance transformation-focused tourism research. It emphasizes interdisciplinary methods, proposing theoretical expansions that explore the breadth of transformation and its practical applications. By comprehensively articulating these frameworks, this paper aims to guide their effective integration in tourism studies. This work deepens the understanding of transformative processes in tourism, contributing significantly to the field's epistemic progression. •Documents the intersection of liminality and transformative learning in tourism•Questions what tourists are hoping to achieve through transformation•Considers dark transformation in liminality and transformative learning•Discusses the structure of individual and collective transformation in tourism•Advances how scholars might leverage such theories in tourism research