This document summarizes a study on how local communities in Rajasthan, India have adapted to water insecurity through social cooperation and traditional knowledge. It outlines the study's goals of understanding how local knowledge is used to adapt to environmental changes and the role of informal institutions in sustaining communities. The study found that women's self-help groups play an important role in addressing personal, family and community concerns. It also found that traditional water harvesting methods have allowed for expanded cultivation and reduced migration to cities. The study concludes that local communities have the skills and social organizations necessary to adapt to environmental challenges through traditional ecological knowledge.

1. Redefining Water Security through Social Reproduction: Lessons Learned from Rajasthan’s “Ocean of Sand.” Michael Mascarenhas, Ph.D. Department of Science and Technology Studies Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

2. Introduction Threats to water security from climate uncertainty are a major social and ecological concern This is of particular importance in a country like India where over half of the people are involved in farming, and agricultural losses due to climate change are estimated to be as high as 30% by 2080.

3. Introduction Goals Outline the extent to which local knowledge is utilized in adapting to new environmental conditions. Examine the role of informal institutions in social reproduction. Extend the analysis of traditional localized water schemes in re-building community sustainability.

4. Literature Review The literature stresses the importance of informal and self-organizing institutions in the sustainable management of shared resources under climate uncertainty. The role that informal institutions perform in adapting to contemporary ecological relations, namely global climate change, is quickly becoming one of the new classic questions in social theory.

5. Literature Review Informal and self-organizing groups are the foundation upon which social reproduction can be built. Social Reproduction continuance of activities that maintains an individual’s, household’s or group’s social, mental, and environmental conditions. child care, education, and health care passing on of languages, knowledges, histories, and cultural practices training of specific subsistent practices the maintenance of particular social norms and customs, and the continuance of social networks the maintenance of particular environmental conditions

6. Methods Ethnography Ongoing study, which began in the summer of 2009. Access to the Meo community was arranged by the Sir SyedTrust AsifZaidi, the Executive Director

7. The Meo community near the village of Bhiwadi

8. The village of Bhiwadi is located in Alwar

9. Woman’s self help group meets every Saturday morning to talk about personal and community concerns

10. The Hydraulic Plan

11. Paal-making

12. Khadeen

13. DhoraorToba

14. Rethinking the Ecologies of Development and Gender Changed roles of women in the community Women are also engaging in larger “policy” decisions Women are addressing personal or family concerns Part of a larger SHG movement in India

15. Rethinking the Ecologies of Development and Gender “Before, community members were not able to grow crops because of a lack of cultivation options. Now,” Zaidi continues, “water harvesting has made cultivation possible and now people stay on the farm instead of leaving for the city.”

16. Rethinking the Ecologies of Development and Gender The contribution of this empirical study is that it offers an alternative to dominate models of development where subsistent communities are seen as helpless, lacking the skills necessary to survive without Western knowledge and technologies.