There is no formal abstract yet. This is for a Master's thesis and will not be published anywhere or shared with anyone except my thesis advisors who will grade it. I am exploring how conservation spaces and sciences are managed, practiced, understood, and perceived specifically within the University of California Natural Reserve System. I am visiting some of the specific sites within this system, as well as interviewing multiple people who take up roles as Reserve directors and scientists, contributing in different ways to conservation science knowledge production. I am curious about the ways people define conservation and their relationship with conservation spaces through management and scientific practices. I am accommodating my research to what scientists, directors, managers, and stewards of the reserves are comfortable with and have time and capacities for. This means that we may or may not do in-person interviews during site visits, interviews online before or after site visits, allow me to participate in activities that they do on-site, and may or may not allow me to observe activities that they do on-site.

Approved