Seminar: Redescribing Science: Anti-Vax Purity Discourses and Reactionary Digital Politics

Seminar: Redescribing Science: Anti-Vax Purity Discourses and Reactionary Digital Politics.

Elmfield Building, Classroom 5

Prof. Anne Kerr (School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow) 

February 24th, 14:00-15:00

Elmfield Building, Classroom 5 and Online.

STeMiS is delighted to host a seminar with Anne Kerr, Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the University of Glasgow. Anne will be presenting work co-lead with Betsy Barkas, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

Anti-mRNA vaccine discourse online is replete with concern about purity and danger (Douglas, 2002). In this ‘mirror-world’ (Klein, 2023), vaccines are agents of contamination and toxicity, enabled by a corrupted scientific and medical establishment. Insertional mutagenesis and genotoxicity are key concerns, including the dangers of vaccine shedding, foreign DNA and vaccine-induced mutations causing long Covid, cancer, and death. Contamination fears extend to the vaccine manufacturing process and regulatory agencies experimenting on the population, even framing vaccines as bioweapons. Vaccines and their institutions are portrayed as deceptive tricksters in this mirror-world, evading immune defences and scientific scrutiny. In response, the unvaccinated must protect their bodily, spiritual, and epistemic purity, arming themselves with knowledge and resisting contamination. Protection of the bodily integrity of women, infants and foetuses is an interesting sub-theme, with concerns about menstrual disruption, breast milk contamination, and placental integrity. This paper explores these themes through a case study of anti-mRNA vaccine discourses on Substack, a rapidly growing platform for subscription-based content. We analyse posts from 10 prominent accounts published between November 2023 and February 2024. We examine how these accounts weave together discourses of biological, scientific, and social contamination, repurposing social, political and scientific norms and values. Drawing on STS and digital politics together with Douglas (2002) on purity and danger, we show how they characterise biological and social order and the interpretive rhetoric this involves including satire, outrage, mockery, and decontextualization that utilise celebrity and entrepreneurial logics. In conclusion we argue that our analysis points to a new form of reactionary digital politics that is dangerously impure (Epstein, 1998) in its anti-science and anti-politics.

Anne will be joining in person - a hybrid option is available for those unable to join us: 

Google Meet joining info
Video call link: https://meet.google.com/vsa-uwoe-sid
Or dial: ‪(GB) +44 20 3910 5662‬ PIN: ‪530 329 447‬#
More phone numbers: https://tel.meet/vsa-uwoe-sid?pin=5103830479521