From electrons to environments and back: practices and practicalities in microbiology beyond reductionism and complexity

This article examines how microbiologists navigate the tension between reductionism and complexity in laboratory research. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in three microbiology labs, this article aims at moving beyond the common framing of reductionism and complexity as opposite ends of a spectrum. On the contrary, this study argues that these concepts are not fixed epistemic positions, but standpoints continuously renegotiated through experimental practices, scalar arrangements and methodological choices. By tracing how reductionist approaches—focused on isolating molecular mechanisms—interact with broader ecological and computational frameworks, the paper shows that complexity is not merely an emergent property but a product of scientific labour. Finally, building on Marilyn Strathern’s notion of partial connections, it reflects on how the research process itself (in science as well as in anthropology and STS) generates gaps, fragmentations and disconnections; these are not failures but generative moments that open up new possibilities for knowledge production.