Book Launch: Negative Ecologies: Fossil Fuels and the Discovery of the Environment, by David Bond

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC | So much of what we know of clean water, clean air, and now a stable climate rests on how fossil fuels first disrupted them. Negative Ecologies is a bold reappraisal of the outsized role fossil fuels have played in making the environment visible, factual, and politically operable in North America. Following stories of hydrocarbon harm that lay the groundwork for environmental science and policy, this book brings into clear focus the dialectic between the negative ecologies of fossil fuels and the ongoing discovery of the environment. Exploring iconic sites of the oil economy, ranging from leaky Caribbean refineries to deepwater oil spills, from the petrochemical fallout of plastics manufacturing to the extractive frontiers of Canada, Negative Ecologies documents the upheavals, injuries, and disasters that have long accompanied fossil fuels and the manner in which our solutions have often been less about confronting the cause than managing the effects. This history of our present promises to re-situate scholarly understandings of fossil fuels and renovate environmental critique today. David Bond challenges us to consider what forms of critical engagement may now be needed to both confront the deleterious properties of fossil fuels and envision ways of living beyond them.

About the Author
David Bond is a cultural anthropologist whose research focuses on the scientific measurement and political management of the disastrous qualities of crude oil. He has conducted ethnographic research on leaky refineries in the Caribbean, on the figure of the Keystone XL Pipeline, corporate social responsibility in the tar sands of Alberta, and the scientific and political response to the BP Oil Spill. Bond is currently working on three projects: a critical history of the category of the environment; a collaborative ethnography on the ends of oil in northern Alaska; and a community engaged response to the discovery of the chemical PFOA in Bennington, VT and Hoosick Falls, NY. His research has been supported by Wenner Gren, the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), and the National Science Foundation; his publications have appeared in Anthropology Now, Cultural Anthropology, and American Ethnologist. Bond holds a PhD in Anthropology from the New School for Social Research. He has taught on the environment and public action at Bennington since 2013 and is the associate director of the Elizabeth Coleman Center for the Advancement of Public Action (CAPA). He is also co-founder of the Bennington College Prison Education Initiative.

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