Conceptualising and Contextualising Contemporary Capacity-Building

Abstract

Contemporary capacity-building assumes varied forms and generates varying degrees of effect and effectiveness. It is therefore useful and important to articulate a scholarly programme for researching capacity-building in its multiple manifestations. This chapter outlines that scholarly programme in three dimensions. Firstly, a concise account is presented of credible and sometimes divergent approaches to conceptualising capacity-building and to mapping a selection of current contexts in which those concepts can be applied. Secondly, nine distinct empirical data sets that the authors have amassed and analysed are portrayed as encapsulating some of the diversity of approaches to conceptualising and contextualising capacity-building. Thirdly, those data sets are used to identify eight educational ‘hot topics’ and ‘wicked problems’ in order to understand contemporary capacity-building from new and potentially powerful perspectives.