Repertoires of Vaccine Refusal in Romania

Repertoires are basic analytic units in discourse analysis and discursive psychology, characterized as repeatable building blocks speakers use for constructing versions of actions. In this study my aim is to analyze public repertoires which are available to parents as discursive resources to substantiate their decision not to vaccinate their children. Online content, two televised talk shows and a series of interviews with parents who refused vaccination from 2017–2019 were analyzed. As a result of this analysis, I have identified a series of repertoires such as distrust repertoires, rejecting any risks when it comes to children, vaccine ineffectiveness and ‘immunity is a limited resource that should not be forced’. These repertoires do a discursive work that seem to go beyond signs of concern or challenges to vaccine safety to perform a moral and epistemic delegitimization of the current system of medical services, medical research and government authorities. Moreover, the identification of the repertoires that circulate in the public space as resources fulfil a discursive function of replacing the current system with new moral and epistemic perspectives.