Short abstract:

This presentation conceptualizes COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the Philippines as rooted in modern-day imaginaries of authoritarianism. It reflects on the ways health interventions are communicated and delivered; and on the fluctuating notions of ‘expertise’, ‘science’, and ‘citizenship’.

Long abstract:

My presentation uses the case of the Philippines to show how hesitancy toward COVID-19 vaccines has been fuelled by their figurations in modern-day imaginaries of authoritarianism. Drawing from in-depth interviews conducted from August to November 2023 with individuals who identified as vaccine-hesitant, I conceptualize the aforementioned imaginaries through three aspects that speak of people’s lived experiences in the country during the COVID-19 pandemic. 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 in extreme cases, people’s very survival. Second, I examine the implementation of the immunization campaign itself, in which discriminatory differences could be gleaned from the experiences of less-privileged communities, echoing the larger, authoritarian nature of the government and its punitive policies. Finally, I situate ‘vaccine authoritarianism’ within people’s consumption practices of scientific and alternative information, their general distrust toward institutions, and imaginations of vaccinations as a transnational, hegemonic tactic intended to strip individuals of their bodily sovereignty. I conclude by reflecting on the ways vaccination campaigns—and similar, large-scale health interventions—have been, and could be better, communicated and delivered; and on the fluctuating notions of ‘expertise’, ‘science’, and ‘citizenship’ as filtered through my interlocutors’ experiences.