No / This study questions the idea that appropriate mechanisms can be designed to ensure optimum resource use, beneficial collective action and hence to build social capital. I argue here that the school of ‘institutional crafting’ in natural resource management is based on concepts which are inadequately socially informed and which ill-reflect the complexity , diversity and ad hoc nature of institutional formation. Three aspects of institutional bricolage are illustrated here: the multiple identities of the bricoleurs; the frequency of cross-cultural borrowing and of multi-purpose institutions; and the prevalence of arrangements and norms which foster co-operation, respect and non-direct reciprocity over lifecourses. In elaborating the concept of bricolage, I raise questions about whether local institutions are amenable to design, the scope for negotiating the norms which underlie institutional arrangements and the extent to which different institutions may be emancipatory or exclusionary. I conclude that development interventions aimed at institution building should be based on a socially informed analysis of the content and effects of institutional arrangements, rather than on their form alone.