Paper short abstract:

Based on ethnographic research on a clinical trial study for a mRNA-based vaccine against SarsCov2, I inquire ‘how culture gets under the skin’. Tracing the everday practices of testing, screening, and vaccinating, this paper will disentangle the sociotechnical assemblages of immunity.

Paper long abstract:

mRNA-based vaccines are envisioned as the promise of salvation: ‘healing information’ is introduced in bodies to stimulate the production of the bodies’ ‘own medicine’. Based on my ethnographic research on a clinical trial study for a mRNA-based vaccine against SarsCov2 this paper inquires ‘how culture gets under the skin’ (Beck et al.). In case of vaccination, it does so by help of a syringe. However, the content of this syringe, its administration, and its efficacy are product of and embedded in complex sociotechnical assemblages of knowledge production. This paper traces the practices and regimes of screening, testing, and vaccinating. It unfolds the interaction and entanglement of viral RNA and antibodies, (bio)technology and bodies, bodily fluid and testing kits, medical staff and test subjects, ‘healthy’ bodies and (serious) adverse events. While the concept of “immunity” is laden with modern notions of autonomy, agency, and self-empowerment, I will - drawing on theories of Esposito and Haraway - propose a different reading: In this clinical trial study, that both surveils and engenders immunogenicity, the immune system becomes manifest as a) the effect of sociotechnical assemblages, and b) as a sociotechnical assemblage itself: as the locus where binary categories – such as: subject/object, culture/nature, biology/technology, individual/environment, self/non-self etc. – are simultaneously constituted and disintegrated.