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WORLD ANTHROPOLOGICAL UNION

CONGRESS 2024​

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.