Devin Wright

Devin is from suburban Southern California. In 2011, Devin enrolled in an alternative educational program called the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies at the University of Redlands where she learned about the importance of place, the role of community, and the value of interdisciplinary scholarship. Her undergraduate studies oriented around sociology, agriculture, and environmental studies and culminated in an interdisciplinary thesis tracing the role of social capital within the Redlands’s local small business network. She graduated with interdisciplinary honors, the top award for interdisciplinary scholars at the university. Following her undergraduate education Devin pursued employment in the California alternative agricultural sector and held a variety of positions including farm assistant, nursery stock grower, and farmers market sales. These experiences gave Devin a practical understanding of alternative food production and networks that informs her research today. 

Devin’s research in the City, Culture, and Community program revolves around critically understanding the material and symbolic relationships between food production, climate, environment, social structure, and everyday lived experience. Her dissertation explores the uneven ways that urban and peri-urban agricultural producers in the New Orleans area are experiencing the climate crisis and its variable manifestations. To complete the project Devin is employing spatial and qualitative interviewing methodologies.