Paper long abstract:

Recent events related to the flu pandemic have epitomized some features of a changing engagement with immunization which has destabilized the principle of universal vaccination. Despite common perceptions that associate non-vaccination with exotic locations and incomplete scientific rationality, there have been phenomena of vaccine uptake decline in the "North" which are at odds with the evolutionary overtones of this framework of understanding. Far from being a residual anachronism deemed to fade away, the emergence of non-vaccination practices is part of wider social transformations framing notions of personalised immunity and health management, changing perceptions of individual and collective risk, trust of state and global institutions. Such transformations build well beyond the narrow framework of episodic vaccine science controversies, which are themselves differently formulated across countries. Findings from an ongoing project set up in several settings will aim at showing the variety of forms attached to the contemporary social acceptability of vaccination.