IN FOCUS
Evidence, Echoes, Effects
Editor: Camilla Di Nardo
On the 6th of March, CUE’s interns had the opportunity to meet Jolanda Zeeman, anthropologist, international communication trainer and founding advisor of CUE’s Transition to College Dating Life Series. Based on our previously crafted questions, Jolanda prepared a training on cross-cultural communication techniques.
I arrived at the meeting with great expectations, as a lot of my work within CUE concerns communication and representation: I’m currently developing the storyboards for the Consent Lab, helping the team visualize the scripts and develop animated components for the course. In parallel, I’m conducting academic research based on my work, exploring the relationship between animation and consent education. I’m specifically interested in understanding how animation can broaden understandings of consent within digital education.
The research is developed on mainly two layers: the first one is more technical, analyzing principles of visual design that can contribute to represent specific internal states, like fear, doubt and shame; the second is related to inclusive storytelling and imagining new narratives to represent diversity. The latter is a personal interest of mine, which brought me to the current studies I’m doing and to this internship. CUE puts at the centre of its work different cultural perspectives and approaches, aiming at meeting learners “not just where they are, but who they are”. Consent education becomes an ongoing process rather than a fixed concept, making everyone feel seen.
The road of real inclusion is definitely longer and more complex than the classical “checklist”. At the beginning of my internship, I discussed thoroughly with the team how to actually practice culturally sensitive representation, which is why I was so curious about Jolanda’s training. I had very specific questions concerning intercultural communication and visual learning: how do we go beyond cultural stereotypes as storytellers? How can we overcome personal biases in inclusive representation? How can we foster intercultural communication in a world that has become more and more polarised (Zulham 2025)?
Jolanda delivered a training session at Utrecht University on March 6th, 2026
The training with Jolanda went beyond the previously defined outline of the meeting, including a long chat on personal experiences and doubts. The conversation ranged among a variety of topics, from the struggles of sharing the importance of inclusivity with various crowds and reflections on our own knowledge and application of cross-cultural techniques of communication. At the end, Jolanda presented us with three core concepts to reflect on, which I believe perfectly sum up the meeting: perspective, values and language. These ideas can be interconnected to explore each one’s different approaches towards communication.
Exploring the Lewis Model, Jolanda explained to us how behaviour is contextual. Lewis defined three behavioural categories in which different cultures can be divided: linear active (e.g. the Netherlands, USA, UK, Germany), multiactive (e.g. Italy, Spain, Brazil, Mexico) and reactive (e.g. China, Vietnam, Japan). All the cultures in these groups are very diverse, but according to Lewis, they follow the same behavioural patterns. For example, linear-active people tend to be more direct, multi-active people more emotional and reactive people more indirect. This model encompasses various communication styles and behaviours, which, of course, don’t represent a fixed rule.
Jolanda invited us to reflect on the model, asking us what characteristics we perceived in ourselves and how realistic it was in our opinion. We noticed how we couldn’t identify ourselves in one single group, and that every person uses different behaviours and approaches that go outside the defined categories. We saw the model more as an indication rather than a rule, as values change personally.
Since values and behaviours are nuanced and layered concepts, Jolanda invited us to reflect on our personal biases and always find ways to enhance our perspective. When we are not inside a specific situation, we inevitably have blind spots; if we want to fill our gaps, we should listen to as many different voices as possible. It’s such a simple but powerful concept, which to me felt really refreshing to discuss with Jolanda: I saw it as an invitation to not perceive my lack of knowledge as a fault, but rather as an opportunity to involve different perspectives.
Jolanda delivered a training session at Utrecht University on March 6th, 2026
Jolanda delivered a training session at Utrecht University on March 6th, 2026
All the talk about going outside fixed lines and welcoming other perspectives was reflected on the outline of the meeting, as Jolanda allowed us to take space to express our personal reflections and doubts when it came to our experience with intercultural communication. I seized the opportunity to talk about my research and work, wanting to discuss all-inclusive representations.
Among the three core concepts, language is the one which I reflect on the most within my internship. Together with my fellow interns, we discussed the practicalities of going beyond stereotypical cultural representations when it comes to animation and my uncertainty in talking about consent within bigger crowds while still maintaining CUE’s core values. As a matter of fact, we all shared the feeling that in this age, opinions have become more and more polarized, making it difficult to exit our own echo chambers (Zulham 2025). Being inclusive means involving everyone, but what happens when someone doesn’t respond?
Jolanda underlined the power of language and images: they allow you to stay consistent with your values by reaching your point through different roads. She outlined different occasions in which some crowds wouldn’t have been responsive to her language, so she simply changed it. By knowing who you are talking with, you can adapt your words to share the same message you believe in. For example, in contexts in which DEI is becoming more and more vilified (Adamczeski and Ring 2025), “lack of inclusion” can be transformed into “the waste of leaving out people and ideas”.
For me, this last statement sums up our training with Jolanda and the reflections on perspective, values and language: broadening the horizons, involving different people, representing new stories and including realistic and appropriate representation is always a gain.
CUE interns with Jolanda
