'To all the anti-vaxxers out there…': ethnography of the public controversy about vaccination in the time of COVID-19.

Abstract

In February 2020, at the start of extensive fieldwork on the state of the public controversy about vaccination in Portugal, France and California – and some 12 years after a previous research – travel became impossible. Pro‐vaccination conferences and anti‐ vaccination protests were tentatively postponed, then cancelled. Participant observation and face‐to‐face interaction now have to be temporarily substituted by systematic internet attentiveness and remote interviews. But while the epidemic hampers most social activities, it only reduces the number of arenas in which controversies can develop. Part of the energy that sustains them is reinvested in other means of intervention, namely online presence. Ethnographers have to mirror Asher Goldstein Division of Migration, Ethnicity and Society (REMESO) Linköping University SE‐60174 Norrköping Sweden asher.goldstein@liu.se