Page 62 - IJPS-6-1

International Journal of Population Studies

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Values, environmental vulnerabilities,

and implications on adaptation:

Evidence from an indigenous Raika

community in Rajasthan, India

Anmol Arora*

UNESCO New Delhi Cluster Office, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, India

Abstract: Global environmental change has exacerbated the vulnerabilities of pastoral
communities in India, who have already been sidelined in the current development and
modernization discourse. The Raikas are one of the largest groups of indigenous nomadic
pastoralists residing in the semi-arid regions of Northwest India. They are facing the brunt of
shrinking grazing areas, social marginalization, and economic pressures. The past two decades
have witnessed additional challenges, such as water scarcity and rainfall variability, which have
pushed them beyond their adaptive threshold. These churnings have led to a radical shift in their
ARTICLE INFO values and climate adaptation strategies. However, the role and importance of social values in
shaping their response to environmental change are not well understood. This study conducted
Received: January 14, 2020 life history interviews and focus group discussions with community members to examine social
Accepted: February 26, 2020
Published: March 11, 2020 values and their linkages with climate adaptation decision-making in Raikas. The findings
demonstrate that the community’s livelihood, health, and social cohesion are severely affected by
*CORRESPONDING AUTHOR environmental change, entwined with social, economic, and political stressors. There is a parallel
Anmol Arora, change taking place in their social values. Their values related to esteem, self-actualization,
UNESCO New Delhi Cluster safety, and belongingness have witnessed shifts, leading them away from pastoralism. This has
Office, 1, San Martin Marg, ramifications on their adaptation decision-making. Their time-tested and preferred choice of
Chanakyapuri - 110 021, New adaptation in the face of drought and water scarcity – seasonal livestock migration – is no longer
Delhi, India. desirable. New adaptation options, such as urban migration, have emerged, while traditional
wordsbyanmol@gmail.com measures have declined in popularity. There is an urgent need to understand and engage with
CITATION a broader set of methodologies and literature to facilitate the integration of social values in
vulnerability and adaptation assessments. The inclusion of social values presents an opportunity
Arora A. (2020). Values, to understand the subjective limits of adaptation better as well as to expand adaptation pathways.
environmental vulnerabilities,
and implications on adaptation: Keywords: Climate change, Environmental vulnerability, Indigenous community, India
Evidence from an indigenous
Raika community in Rajasthan, This article belongs to the Special Issue: Environment and Population Dynamics in South Asia
India. International Journal of
Population Studies, 6(1):56-68. 1. Introduction
doi: 10.18063/ijps.v6i1.1066
Copyright: © 2020 Arora. Adaptation can be defined as the “adjustment in natural or human systems in response to
This is an Open-Access article actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial
distributed under the terms opportunities” (IPCC TAR, 2001: 982). The need for adaptation has outpaced its implementation,
of the Creative Commons leading to an adaptation deficit (Eisenack, Moser, Hoffmann, et al., 2014). Therefore, it has
Attribution-Non Commercial
4.0 International License become imperative to identify the limits of adaptation and overcome them. Most discussions
(http://creativecommons.org/ on the limits of adaptation focus on external factors such as technology, ecology, and economy.
licenses/by-nc/4.0/), permitting This approach to envisioning the limits to adaptation is appealing because it provides analytical
all noncommercial use, functionality, which aligns well with the other important dimensions of climate change analysis,
distribution, and reproduction
in any medium, provided the namely, modeling variations in the earth system and energy-economic modeling of mitigation
original work is properly cited. policy (Adger, Dessai, Goulden, et al., 2009: 337). While useful, these methods exclude the

56 International Journal of Population Studies | 2020, Volume 6, Issue 1