BOND, DAVID, 2022, Negative ecologies: Fossil fuels and the discovery of the environment, Univ of California Press, 262 pp., ISBN: 978-0-52038-678-5

Keywords: Negative Ecologies, Fossil Fuels, Disaster, Toxicity.

Negative Ecologies is a prime ethnographic book on toxicity and disasters caused by the fossil fuel industry. Both beautifully and intricately written, the book offers various fundamental case studies of the social and environmental consequences and costs of our exemplary commodity – crude oil. It is also a book grounded in a broad critique of industrial capitalism.

In the Introduction, Bond starts by placing crude oil at the center of attention, à la Michael Watts (2004; 2005). Oil as a commodity – with its staggering profit, the extraction of which brings destruction as the norm – is the protagonist of the book. The destructive impact of crude oil extraction cannot be contained within the given structures of inequality, and it is “protected” by deep investments and by the law, shielding it from resistance, protests, and activism (3). Bond argues that it has become common sense to “protect” the oil economy and that no disaster is huge enough and not enough lives and livelihoods are lost to make oil finally accountable. Why? Are we just blinded by the riches that oil brings, or have we built around us a knowledgeable discourse of negative ecologies that transform paradoxes into norms? By negative ecologies, Bond refers to the detrimental impacts of human activities on the environment, resulting in ecological degradation, loss of biodiversity, and disruption of natural systems and communities. He highlights the urgent need for sustainable and regenerative practices. Throughout the book, Bond argues that addressing issues of toxicity and environmental pollution requires not just technical solutions, but also broader social and political changes that challenge the structures of power and inequality underpinning resource extraction and industrial capitalism more broadly.

Bond started fieldwork in 2010, studying the aftermath of the BP oil spill among the coastal communities of the Gulf of Mexico. How residents experienced the disaster was one of the author’s primary research questions. Soon, it became clear to the researcher that the life experiences of the locals and the technological reasoning around the spill were in dissonance. The contrast between the promise of oil and the resulting negative environmental impacts drew Bond’s focus towards the distressed state of the world (12). Anthropology does often focus on the negative aspects of society, so why is Bond’s book so important? Because in Negative Ecologies Bond uses a poetic and eloquent tone to convey a sense of respect and awe of the destruction brought by oil. Case studies used by the author include the trans-Alaskan pipeline, coastal communities devastated by oil spills, toxic fallout from spills, contaminated waters, scorched forests and disappearing mangroves. All these cases of ecological fallout are protected by the mantra of profit, by its fiscal promise, by the utopia of global wellbeing it claims will ensue. The book evokes dreadful images, and the reader’s attention remains fixed on the environment.  

The book focuses on North America, on how we manage the effects rather than how we confront the causes of disasters. Bond gives a history of the categories and series of destruction that convinced scientists, citizens, and policymakers about how “toxic thresholds and impact assessments extend the life and consequences of the use of fossil fuels, retain them within the juri