Don't vaccinate! Citizenship as a biological control device and method of resistance to health policies

Abstract

From the case of the anti-vaccine groups, in this article we review what we believe is a weakness of Foucault's concept of biopolitics: which is the inability to propose analytical elements to explain the practices of resistance towards health policies promoted by the state. To address this analysis, we consider the ideas proposed in the post-Foucauldian concept of biological citizenship from where they are analyzed communications legal articulations of citizen groups organized to achieve specific strategic goals for their health conditions are analyzed from the perspective of this concept. We conclude that although resistance to state health initiatives can be analyzed as a daily practice, we argue that not everyone can exercise this freedom on their bodies, being reserved for small groups of the population.