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Biography

David Bond is a cultural anthropologist whose ethnographic research and public engagements aim to dismantle the imperial, epistemic, and altogether catastrophic reign of petro-capitalism. In historical excavations of the environmental racism that exempts oil refineries from pollution controls by dint of their colonial location in the American Caribbean, in fieldwork on how environmental protections often encase fossil fuel infrastructure in impenetrable ethics, and in collaborative campaigns with frontline communities to publicize corporate maleficence and prosecute polluters, Bond’s work strives to hold the empire of oil accountable for its profitable destruction of our planet while making room for radical alternatives inside the classroom and impacted communities. Our world is entering a new epoch of induced upheaval. So many communities battered by the poisonous reach of petrochemicals and climactic fallout of fossil fuels are eager for bold explanations of what is happening, who is responsible, and what alternatives are within reach. In response, Bond’s scholarship insists on the relevance of anthropology to: 1) craft cogent accounts of environmental disruptions that exceed disciplined knowledge and institutional jurisdiction; 2) recognize unhinged catastrophe without giving up on justice in the here and now, and 3) insist on the ability of ethnography to build common ground in an age of ecological upheaval and economic decline. In 2022, Bond was awarded the “” by the American Anthropological Association.

Bond received his PhD in Cultural Anthropology from the in 2013. With generous support from the , the , the , , and others, Bond’s research routinely forms the basis of press releases, draft legislation, opinion pieces for small-town newspapers, and essays for flagship anthropology journals. Engaging questions of materiality, toxicity, empire, and critique. Bond’s scholarship has been published in leading journals such as American Ethnologist, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Cultural Anthropology, and Radical History Review, and he serves on the editorial board of AE and Current Anthropology. Bond’s work has been featured in Bloomberg News, the Guardian, Inside Climate News, The Intercept, Politico, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, among other news outlets.

Bond’s first book, , argues that most of what we know of clean air, clean water, and now a stable climate in the United States emerged in the wake of fossil fueled disasters. Yet the resulting environmental science and policy never faced up to these disasters directly, instead working to manage the effects as a separate matter of concern. The environment, in other words, has not so much provided an effective counterweight to the American addiction to oil so much as it provided the acceptable parameters for that addiction to deepen and spread. The American Anthropology Association (AAA) awarded Negative Ecologies  for Anticipatory Anthropology in 2024.

Bond was Member of the School of Social Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton 2018-19 for the theme “” (organized by Didier Fassin and Axel Honneth). Bond was also an invited Visitor at IAS 2022-23 for the theme “” (organized by Wendy Brown and Timothy Mitchell). He also holds an affiliation with the at the University of Vermont (UVM).

Bond has taught at 51�������� since 2013. He is also the Associate Director of the Center for the Advancement of Public Action. Bond helped found the Prison Education Initiative (PEI) at 51�������� in 2015 with Annabel Davis-Goff. Many of his students have secured jobs with leading environmental justice organizations or gained admissions to top graduate anthropology programs in the United States and Europe.

Current Research Projects

A Crucian Crucible: Environmental Justice on St. Croix 

Environment: A Disastrous History of the Hydrocarbon Present

The Ends of Oil: Nature and Culture in a Changing Alaska

Understanding PFOA

Books

David Bond. 2022.  (University of California Press). 

• Introduction
• Environment: A Disastrous History of the Hydrocarbon Present

[Winner of ]

Peer Reviewed Publications

David Bond. 2024. "Disfigured Commons: Profit and Pollution in the American Empire of Oil," Social Analysis, 68(2): pp. 21-43. 

David Bond. 2023. "Public Anthropology in a Pandemic: Advocacy, Ethnography, and Theory," General Anthropology, 30(1): pp. 6-11. 

David Bond. 2022. "Anthropology in an Age of Upheaval: Reflections on Environmental Justice in the American Empire of Oil," Anthropologia Pubblica, 8(1): pp. 157-82.

Daniel Aldana Cohen and David Bond. 2022. "Towards a Theory of Climate Praxis: Confronting Climate Change in a World of Struggle," in Crisis Under Critique, eds. Didier Fassin and Axel Honneth. Columbia UP): pp. 271-292.

David Bond. 2021. "Contamination in Theory and Protest," American Ethnologist, 48(4). 

David Bond. 2021. “What’s Wrong with the White Working Class?,”&�Բ�����;Anthropology Now, special issue on Trumpism, 13(1): pp. 37-43.

Tim Schroeder, David Bond, and Janet Foley. 2021. “,”&�Բ�����;Environmental Science: Processes and Impact, Advance Article (Jan 1).

David Bond. 2018. "," Occasional Papers of the School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study, Paper Number 64 (November). 

David Bond. 2017.​ "Oil in the Caribbean: Refineries, Mangroves, and the Negative Ecologies of Crude Oil," Comparative Studies in Society and History, 59(3): pp. 600-628.

David Bond. 2015. “The Promising Predicament of the Keystone XL Pipeline,” Anthropology Now, 7(1): pp. 20-28.

Lucas Bessire and David Bond. 2014. “Ontological Anthropology and the Deferral of Critique,”&�Բ�����;American Ethnologist, 41(3): pp. 440-456.

David Bond. 2013. “Governing Disaster: The Political Life of the Environment During the BP Oil Spill,” Cultural Anthropology, 28(4): pp. 694-715.

David Bond. 2011. “The Science of Catastrophe: Making Sense of the BP Oil Spill,” Anthropology Now, 3(1): pp. 36-46.

Ann Laura Stoler and David Bond. 2006. “Refractions Off Empire: Untimely Comparisons in Harsh Times,” Radical History Review (95), pp. 93-107.

Scholarly Contributions

David Bond. 2024. "," Engagement: Anthropology and Environment Society (Mar. 4). 

David Bond. 2020. , Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Critical Care Series (Nov. 16).

David Bond. 2020. A House Divided: Ben Lerner's America, Anthropology Now, (12:2): pp. 101-8.

David Bond and John Hultgren. 2020. , International Karl Polanyi Society Newsletter (June). 

David Bond. 2020. After Oil, Anthropology News, Climate Issue (March/April): pp. 22-25.

Lucas Bessire and David Bond. 2017. “,” Virtual Issue, Cultural     Anthropology, guest edited by Bessire and Bond, January 18. [most shared collection of CA]

David Bond and Lucas Bessire. 2014. “,” Virtual Issue, American Ethnologist, guest edited by Bond and Bessire, September 25.

David Bond and Lucas Bessire. 2014. “,” Fieldsights—Commentary, Cultural Anthropology Online, February 28.

Zohra Beben. 2013. “,”&�Բ�����;Cultural Anthropology Online, November 15.

David Bond. 2013. “Crude Domination?,” The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, 18(3): pp. 527-9.

David Bond. 2013. “What Was Lost in the BP Oil Spill?,” Anthropology Now, 5(3): pp. 97-101.

Public Engagements

David Bond. 2022. "" St. Croix Source (Sept 5).

David Bond, Frandelle Gerard, Sommer Sibilly-Brown, and Jennifer Valiulis. 2022. "" St. Croix Source (Aug 22).

David Bond. 2021. "," Interview on KALW, San Francisco (Nov 1).

David Bond. 2021. “,”&�Բ�����;The Guardian (Oct 24).

David Bond. 2021. "A Crucian Parable," Stabroek News (Aug 9).

David Bond. 2021. "" The Guardian (July 21).

David Bond. 2021. "," a six part historical series in the St. Croix Source (May-June). 

---------- 1. The First Green New Deal (May 18, 2021)

---------- 2. Manufactured Progress (May 26, 2021)

---------- 3. Crude Prosperity (June 5, 2021)

David Bond. 2021. “,”&�Բ�����;The Guardian (Mar 25).

David Bond, Janet Foley, and Tim Schroeder. 2020. Ban All Incineration of PFAS in New York, Op-Ed in Times Union (May 31): D2.

David Bond, Jakub Crcha, and Shachi Mokashi. 2019. Oil Train Smuggles Deadly Risk into our Backyards, Again, Op-Ed in Bennington Banner (Oct 18).

David Bond. 2018. , Op-Ed in Times Union (Aug 21).

David Bond, Janet Foley, and Tim Schroeder. 2018. , Bennington Banner (Aug 2): A6.

David Bond and Jorja Rose. 2018. , Vermont Digger (May 20).

David Bond. 2017. , Bennington Banner (Nov 26): A6.

David Bond and Phoebe Cohen. 2017. “Dismantling EPA: What This Means for Vermont,” Op-Ed in Bennington Banner (Feb 1): pp. A6.