摘要：Empathy is a key skill for intercultural understanding. This paper evaluates the results of a pilot study for an exercise designed to introduce undergraduate geographers to the problems of interpreting emotional messages from an unfamiliar culture and world view. It is based on the screening of a film “Rasa Yatra: A Pilgrimage to the Heart of India”, which communicates a spiritual, non-western message through images and music. Learners are set the task of interpreting the emotional content of this film and of trying to share the feelings of an Other. Although almost the whole class claimed this exercise to be both enjoyable and worthwhile, only a fifth made any systematic attempt to engage with the film’s emotional content, while more remained detached spectators. Several learners attempted objective analyses of the film’s structures, some focused on embedded cross-cultural ethical issues concerning social justice or gender, while others sought counterpoints between tradition vs. modernity, material vs. spiritual, etc. Very few drew on their prior learning about visual methodologies in Geography although many employed theory learnt within previous sessions of this same class. It is debated whether the use of questionnaires or more simple interpretive prompts would have improved the outcome. Meanwhile, the film provides an easily accessible resource for work on intercultural communication and internationalisation of the Geography curriculum.
