Abstract
Conceptualising and contextualising capacities are complex and contentious processes. This chapter charts possible courses through the maze of terminology, theories and techniques associated with the principles and practices of capacity-building across an array of scholarly disciplines and spheres of employment. Specifically the authors consider how multidisciplinary intersections among four key concepts–capacities, connections, capital and capabilities–are manifested in bioecological and electrical engineering models of capacity-building. The chapter also examines how identified convergences and divergences between the models simultaneously encapsulate wider debates about building capacities and constitute a rigorous and viable direction for enhancing existing approaches to conceptualising and contextualising this field of scholarship.