Microbes: Intimate strangers and invisible enemies: Microbe-human-environment relationships

This chapter explores the parallel identities of microbes as harmful and helpful to human life. During its inception the field of bacteriology was focused largely on pathogenic microorganisms, reinforcing the popular view of microbes as sinister, malign, and troublesome. However, the recognition that microbes of different kinds – especially bacteria and fungi – have vital symbiotic relationships with multicellular organisms and the natural world has led us to new ways of theorising them. Incorporating both historical examples, and a synthesis of some of the key features of humanities scholarship about microbes, it shows that microbes became vehicles for a range of social anxieties but also offer promise as tools for rethinking the connections between lifeforms and their environments.