Beyond ‘the war on vaccines’ : An improvised approach to controversies and conflicts in the vaccination debate

• The essay draws on the shifting methodology in an ongoing multi-sited digital ethnography research project about vaccination-related social media forums. The research, which focuses on vaccine caution and vaccine confidence, was initially directed by ‘following the conflict,’ one of the strategies of following thatGeorge Marcus discusses in his methodology for multi-sited ethnography. However, over the course of time, and after improvisations related to access, positionality, the changing nature of digital content and context of interactions, the initial focus on ‘the war on vaccines’ shifted into a challenging ofoversimplified ideas of oppositional stances, division, and ‘conflict’. What I refer to as ‘following agreements within the conflict’ helps to highlight how the forum members, regardless of their stance, can challenge debate divisions − such as scientific–unscientific, medical–anti-medical, research evidence–anecdotal evidence, and individual–public − while still adhering to medico-scientific discourses as zones of agreements. This enables a modest effort to put both vaccine caution and vaccine confidence on the map of improvisations of health activism and the social movements more generally. Inaddition, it highlights the limits to liminality. In an adult-centric debate that silences young people’s views on (child) vaccinations, I propose the strategy of ‘following silences’ as an additional form of agreement. Finally, I argue that afocus on agreements and silences in conflicts is in alignment with anthropological and post-structural research which commonly focuses onliminal zones and continuities and sheds light on complexities in a nuanced and ‘thick’ manner.

Subject headings

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Annan medicin och hälsovetenskap -- Övrig annan medicin och hälsovetenskap (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Other Medical and Health Sciences -- Other Medical and Health Sciences not elsewhere specified (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Tvärvetenskapliga studier inom samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi -- Socialantropologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology -- Social Anthropology (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)