Showcasing Recent FindingsFourth Workshop of the Knowing Vaccines ITN

26 January 2024

Photo: Florian Helfer

On 26 January 2024, the Knowing Vaccines team held its fourth workshop, in which team members showcased their recent research findings to the group.

To open the workshop, Tobias Becker drew upon Michel Foucault’s work on dispositives to explore the power relationships underpinning the visual discourses of vaccination in media. This conceptual framework was effectively demonstrated by examining the dispositive relationships of several different types of media, from 19th century cartoons depicting vaccination to present-day TikTok videos commenting on Covid-19, and thus exploring how they developed. Similarly examining how vaccination has been socially framed, Florian Helfer presented on the prevalence of morality in relation to Covid-19 vaccination. By examining articles from the German newspapers Die Zeit and Spiegel which commented on compulsory vaccination from 2020 to 2023, it was illustrated how the vaccination discourse narrative changed over time and was characterised by influential actors such as politicians, institutions, stakeholders, and experts. Initially, the discourse was anchored in the notion of freedom of choice, but gradually shifted towards prioritising freedom of mobility and safeguarding life. This shift reflected a changing order of justification within the vaccination discourse. Furthermore, the unequal distribution of voices within this discourse underscored a prevailing regime of knowledge, while simultaneously revealing gaps in critique. A dynamic that might be characteristic of an ongoing regime of living.

Shifting the focus towards post-vaccination experiences, Carolin Albers presented on gendered aspects underpinning Covid-19-related fatigue syndromes from the perspectives of intersectionality and epistemic injustice. After firstly highlighting that female biology was stigmatised when women approached doctors about Long Covid, the presentation then explored how protestors in Hamburg symbolically raised awareness for such experiences. Thus, the gendered dynamics of Long Covid and Post-vaccine syndrome was explored from a variety of perspectives. Continuing this focus on epistemic injustice, Lesley Branagan examined the experience of silence and Covid-19 Post-vaccine syndrome in the United Kingdom. It was established that affected individuals recognised silence on mainstream media, experienced silence through social media censorship, and self-silenced themselves within social networks in recognition of the sensitivity of the subject. Similarly exploring the social responses to such experiences, the UK Covid-19 Public Inquiry in September 2023 provided a platform for the first legal efforts to gain official representation. Nevertheless, confined to the legal discourse, it was highlighted that those affected by Post-vaccine syndrome in the UK still feel constrained by the phenomenon of (self-)silencing.

Further examining the continued experience of diseases following vaccination, Peter Banks presented on the rehabilitative plans of leading doctors in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) for polio patients during the 1950s. Despite not necessarily corresponding with the GDR’s propagated images of strong and healthy workers, doctors recognised polio patients as having a unique capacity to contribute to the state’s economy. By examining the careers of doctors responsible for polio rehabilitation in the GDR, it was highlighted that racial hygiene ideals popular during the Nazi regime continued to influence how doctors envisaged polio patients in GDR society.

Furthermore, Nataliya Aluferova introduced an experimental methodological approach to conduct medicament elicitation interviews. Aluferova’s study on (dis)trust towards the German health care system among Russian-speaking people in Germany involved participants showcasing their home collection of medicines. The idea behind this is that each medicine in the home medication collection is associated with a particular disease and period in the interviewee's life. The data led to an analysis of practices related to medicine use, the development of a household pharma kits typology, and the identification of medications used. To effectively demonstrate this method in vivo, an interview scenario was performed whereby Otto Habeck showcased his household medical items and was quizzed by Nataliya on their origins and age, and the reasons for keeping them.

In summary, covering a range of themes, the ITN workshop gave an insight into several interdisciplinary perspectives underpinning vaccination. In addition to exploring the social discourses in which vaccination has been framed, presentations underlined that vaccination is influenced by wider medical practices and overshadowed by the experience of vaccine damages and persisting consequences of disease infection.

Written by Peter Banks

Participants

PhD candidates
Peter Banks
Carolin Albers
Tobias Becker
Florian Helfer
Nataliya Aluferova

Postdoctoral Researcher
Lesley Branagan

Professors
Gertraud Koch
Otto Fabeck
Kathrin Fahlenbrach