"Whatever They Say I Do the Opposite": Vaccine Resistance in Turkey During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Following a 2015 ruling in the Turkish Supreme Court, vaccine resistance has increased significantly in Turkey. Where childhood vaccination was once compulsory, it is now voluntary, enabling the transformation of Turkish lay medical culture. This medical culture rose in political importance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, little is known about vaccine hesitancy and resistance in Turkey, and the interconnections with the wider political atmosphere in the country. We draw upon fieldwork conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic and explore the rationales behind people's vaccination choices. We argue that vaccines encouraged by the state offer citizens opportunities for individuation and resistance to the more generalized coercive practices of the Turkish state.

Mandating immunity in the Ottoman Empire: A history of public health education and compulsory vaccination

Histories of medicine and vaccinology routinely reference the Ottoman Empire with regard to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, her children's variolation, and the transmission of this knowledge throughout Britain and thereafter Europe. Few, however, follow the empire's ongoing relationship with vaccination after the Montagu family's departure. This article examines this aspect of Ottoman medical history by noting how Jenner's advances diffused back into the empire and then presenting and analyzing how imperial, medical, and even community leaders began to both educationally condition the population and gradually enact legislation that mandated vaccination. Owing to severe infrastructural, personnel, and financial deficits, instability, and popular fears and trepidation, the empire's aspirations to achieve universal vaccination were far from realized by the time of its early 1920s demise—especially throughout largely rural Anatolia. Ottoman institutional, educational, and legislative advances, however, collectively prepared the ground for the succeeding Turkish republic and its public health agenda. Given the republic's promotion of its efforts to modernize Turkey amid its mutual initiatives of nation-building, the empire's histories of providing this foundation are also sometimes overlooked.