Familiar worlds of scientific skepticism. Criticism of compulsory coronavirus vaccination as a prelude to resistance against interventionist sustainability policies

Abstract

The announcement of mandatory vaccination in Austria in November 2021 was part of a long series of political ordinances to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. These measures, which were perceived as an interventionist state interfering in private matters, led to widespread protests and criticism. The latters’ interpretation as a conspiracy-theoretical position from the fringes, however, is not compatible with the range of institutional and science scepticism expressed in connection with rejecting the COVID-19 vaccination. This article presents the findings of ethnographic interviews with people in the centre of society who are critical of the measures. The combination of lifeworld analysis and subjectivation analysis brings to light discourse-related self-positionings and their relevance as well as the shift in social references that took place during the pandemic. The empirically obtained self-positioning as a “knowledgeable minority without a resonance space” reveals the experience of a “we” that presents itself as a reference group in the sense of “small lifeworlds”. The latter’s reconstruction reveals a transformative potential that is likely to be relevant not least with view to the interventionist policies that are to be expected in tackling the climate crisis.