Short abstract:

This paper examines how Russian-speaking individuals with Soviet or post-Soviet backgrounds in Germany use various "lifehacks" to circumvent the country's mandatory Covid-19 vaccination policy.

Long abstract:

The mandatory Covid-19 vaccination policy in Germany has ignited a debate over democracy and civil liberties. This decision has prompted a discussion on the restriction of rights and individual freedoms, resonating beyond just vaccine sceptics.

My research centres on individuals from the Russian-speaking community with a Soviet or post-Soviet background currently residing in Germany. The data I have collected indicates a prevalent low level of trust among this group in the social system and the government. Such distrust may be understood as a rational adaptation strategy to frequent crises and uncertainties, leading to the habitual circumvention of formal rules - a concept known as "mētis" (Scott 1999). This way of adaptation also contributes to vaccine hesitancy.

Through interviews, participants shared various tactics (Certeau 1984), referred to as “lifehacks”, for bypassing vaccination regulations in Germany. These lifehacks range from presenting counterfeit test results to employing specialised compresses believed to neutralise the vaccine's effect. I argue that these actions cannot be simply categorised as pro- or anti-vaccine, or as pro- or anti-government. Instead, they reflect a complex and multifaceted set of beliefs and meanings that demand nuanced analysis.

In my paper, I aim to explore the lifehacks of vaccine sceptics in response to Germany's mandatory Covid-19 vaccination policy. Specifically, I intend to investigate the underlying world of meanings behind these tactics.