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Paper short abstract

Using a symmetric STS lens, this paper shows how Italian pro–vaccine-choice RKCs do not reject science but enact an alternative model of “pure science”. Through marginal experts, independent research, and experiential evidence, they reshape scientific authority from the margins.

Paper long abstract

Building on the STS commitment to analytical symmetry, this paper argues that understanding the making and unmaking of scientific fields requires examining how epistemic frameworks developed at the margins of institutional science become actionable, credible, and trustworthy for specific publics. Rather than focusing solely on the emergence of formally recognized disciplines, it investigates how contested knowledge communities attempt to reconfigure scientific authority itself.

Drawing on 18 months of digital multi-sited ethnography and 21 in-depth interviews with members of Italian pro-vaccine-choice Refused Knowledge Communities (RKCs), the paper analyzes how these actors do not simply reject institutional biomedicine but actively strive to enact an alternative model of scientific inquiry. Rather than positioning themselves as “anti-science,” they mobilize scientific credentials, methods, and formats to materialize a vision of science imagined as independent from political and economic interests and responsive to lay concerns. Empirically, this effort takes shape through three interrelated practices: (1) elevating marginal scientists as icons of epistemic integrity; (2) producing independent research that adopts conventional scientific formats, including sequencing studies and citizen-driven immunological projects; and (3) integrating experiential knowledge into evidence-making processes.

What emerges is an aspirational model of “pure science” that reworks established norms of objectivity, independence, and participation. By tracing how this alternative vision is materially enacted and socially legitimized, the paper contributes to debates on field formation by showing how scientific authority is not only institutionally consolidated but also reassembled from the margins through the redefinition of credibility, authority, and trust.