ABSTRACT
National, State and local governments in Australia are currently looking to integrate notions of community, social capital and community capacity building into a variety of policy areas, including bushfire preparedness and safety. This chapter provides an overview of the concepts of community, social capital and 'community capacity building, including an outline of how the use of these terms is varied and contested. It presents insights into the limits of relying on notions of 'community' in policy. Social capital has become a concept used in a wide range of academic disciplines, but like community, an exact and widely agreed-upon definition of social capital remains elusive. Community capacity building is a term found in recent discourses in relation to community development that is closely related to social capital. In considering community, an equally confusing term is that of social capital, referring to the ways that those in communicative networks and other social structures benefit from such membership.
