Short abstract:

This presentation describes the 'vaccine authoritarianism' and necropolitical style of governance that defined the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in the Philippines.

Long abstract:

My presentation uses the case of the Philippines to show how hesitancy toward COVID-19 vaccines was reinforced by modern-day imaginaries of public health authoritarianism. Drawing from in-depth interviews conducted from August to November 2023 with individuals who identified as vaccine-hesitant, I describe the 'vaccine authoritarianism' that shaped people’s lived experiences in the country during the COVID-19 pandemic. I contend that such authoritarianism was a form of necropolitics, using two analytical foci to illustrate my point. First, I interrogate the widespread use of vaccination cards or passports, which, while never mandated by law, ended up dictating the (im)possibilities of mobility, sociality, employment, and economic survival. Second, I examine the implementation of the immunization campaign itself in socioeconomically marginalized communities, situating the campaign's draconian and discriminatory practices within the government's legacy of punitive policies. Taken together, these 'cartographies of blame' demonstrate the scapegoating of the unvaccinated as recalcitrant obstacles to society's supposed way out of the pandemic, in effect diverting attention from larger, structural issues that have remained unaddressed. I conclude by reflecting on the ways vaccination campaigns—and similar, large-scale health interventions—have been, and could be better communicated and delivered, as filtered through my interlocutors’ experiences.