Paper
ON VACCINES, EMOTIONS AND TESTIMONIES: the place of the body in the production of antagonistic discourses to the immunization against covid-19
presenters
Katia Lerner
Nationality: Brazil
Residence: Brazil
Fundação Oswaldo Cruz
Presence:Online
Janine Cardoso
Presence:Online
Tatiana Clebicar
Nationality: Brazil
Residence: Portugal
Universidade dos Açores
Presence:Online
Keywords:
Vaccines. Body. Emotions. Testimony. Covid-19.
Abstract:
This work analyzes the arguments, meanings and emotions in discourses antagonistic to immunization against Covid-19 in the Brazilian context, taking the body as its central axis. The corpus consists of 27 videos posted on digital platforms between 2020 and 2021, in contexts of vaccine hesitation, political polarization and increased production and circulation of information, under algorithmic logics which privilege counterepistemic discourses. The analysis revealed the body in a multidimensional way: a) individual, vulnerable to an experimental artifact; b) collective, as an object of totalitarian leftist groups' power; c) political, associated to public agentes, in the sense of defrauding the vaccination ritual; d) testimonial, as evidence of the vaccine's harmful effects. Fear, mistrust, and indignation towards the vaccine reveal discourses opposed to democracy and collective care. Understanding them is fundamental to strengthen bonds between democracy, science and health in the (re)construction of the dialogue between institutions and individuals.