This paper reports preliminary findings from a study sponsored by the ESRC about collaborative governance under austerity.

With the waning of state-sponsored multiculturalism, local governments in Australia have assumed leadership and responsibility for establishing and maintaining collaborative relationships with stakeholders to promote diverse and inclusive cities.

This paper explores tensions in the idea of citizenship from a theoretical stance and from a perspective anchored in the local experience of neighbourhood houses, and reminds us that being a citizen engaged in governance of a place is more difficult than the much more common notions of citizen as political slogan or legal identity.