Monica Barone
Manager of Policy, Planning and Commissioning, Warringah Council

Everyday Diversity

Abstract
The struggle to reconcile notions of nationhood and citizenship with how we occupy this place continues. The everyday reality is that for many people these notions feel incongruous with lived experience and inconsistent with the challenges that a growing environmental awareness is presenting.

Nevertheless, communities continuously negotiate belonging and participating; expectations and obligations. Everyday, links are forged, agreements arrived at. Everyday individuals risk the certainty of a coherent identity based on assumptions about who we are and how we are, in the hope that by engaging in these negotiations, in taking the risk, we will come to define who and how we will be in the future.

In this paper Monica Barone will recount some everyday negotiations of diversity undertaken by Warringah Council ­ a local government area that places Environment as its number one issue - and explore how these community experiences contribute to this discussion.

Bionote
Monica Barone is the Manager of Policy, Planning and Commissioning at Warringah Council. Her unit is responsible for Council's Infrastructure, Community, Environment and Corporate Planning.

Prior to joining local government she managed migrant and youth services. For nine years she ran her own business "People Next Door". PND projects included an invitation by the University of Utrecht, Netherlands, to deliver their first course in Australian Cultural Studies.

Presentation Type
30 min Paper