SIETAR Switzerland 2025 Conference, Lucerne
Friday 27 June
Keynote Speaker 09:30 – 10:30
Assoc. Prof. Dr Katharina Addington-Lefringhausen
Intercultural Experiences Change You Too
Consider how intercultural experiences change us all – yes, host community members too – and explore what this means for your students, employees, and communities.
Assoc. Prof. Dr Katharina is a cross-cultural and social psychologist and works as an Associate Professor (she/her) in Psychology at Heriot Watt University (Scotland). Her research focusses on multiculturalism and majority members’ acculturation, having extensively published on the latter. Beyond other roles, Katharina acts as current Director of Community Development SIETAR UK, Co-leader of SIETAR UK RAAS project, Co-leader of Special Interest Group Migration SIETAR Europa, and External stakeholder of IncluKIT.
Friday 27 June
Keynote Speaker 16:30 – 17:30
Dr Milton J. Bennett
Authoritarianism: A Devolution of Leadership
Forms of human leadership and governance have recently evolved to fit unprecedented multicultural social conditions, but maladaptive earlier forms continue to beckon from an idealized past. Dr. Bennett suggests some forms of conscious resistance and reconstruction.
Dr Milton J. Bennett, Ph.D. is Executive Director of the Intercultural Development Research Institute co-located in Washington State, USA and Milan, Italy, and he is also an adjunct professor of intercultural communication at the University of Milano Bicocca. He is a contributing co-editor of a multi-volume Springer series entitled The New Authoritarianism.
Saturday 28 June
Keynote Speaker 09:00 – 10:00
Prof. Dr Ida Castiglioni
Integral Leadership in a World of Fake
Recent world events reflect 25 years of inebriation with fakeness. The imperative of pumping up our CV and presentation of self are now reflected in the hyperbole of leadership. Prof. Castiglioni will present a syncretic reflection on our swinging from sensationalism to seclusion in an eternal quest for authenticity and recognition.
Prof. Dr Ida Castiglioni, Ph.D. is a professor of sociology of cultural processes and communication and recent director of the graduate program in Programming and Management of Social Services and Public Policies at the University of Milano Bicocca. She is a member of the board of that university’s PhD program in Strategic Innovation for Sustainable and Smart Ecosystems and in the PhD program in Urban studies. She has been serving for some years as a strategic coach for female researchers awarded with large grants funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.