Rising vaccine hesitancy is often related to negative vaccination media coverage. It is generally accepted that the media played a great role in spreading the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) ...childhood vaccination scare first in the UK and then worldwide. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the MMR vaccination rate dropped further in some countries. This paper examines the Serbian news media framing of the MMR vaccination controversy in the period 2019–2023 (periods of declining MMR vaccination rate, rising COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and the 2023 measles outbreaks). Furthermore, the paper questions whether the COVID-19 pandemic influenced the MMR vaccine narrative in the newspapers. For this reason, quality content analysis of the press in combination with framing approaches (diagnostic–prognostic–motivational framing tasks and responsibility framing) were used. In total, 122 articles dealing with the MMR vaccine and measles epidemics were analysed. According to the press, the most significant cause of the declining MMR rate is anti-vaccination campaigns and conspiracy theories by the “anti-vax lobby” (diagnostic frames). The pandemic was the other significant cause for the intake drop. Achieving herd immunity through vaccine uptake is offered as the best solution (prognostic frames). Finally, MMR vaccination campaigns and penalties for non-compliant parents and vaccine refusers are proposed as calls to action (motivational frames). During this period, the press did not publish any “sensational anti-vax stories”. Considering the low MMR vaccine numbers in Serbia in this period, positive media messages did not have a significant influence on improving the vaccination rate. Thus, I suggest that Serbian parents distrust vaccination information presented by the dominant news, including the advice of health experts.
•Strong childhood and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Serbia.•The press blames the “anti-vaxx lobby” as the main culprit for low vaccination rate.•The lack of sensational anti-vaccine stories in the press.•Lack of state responsibility for the low MMR vaccine uptake.•Vaccine scepticism as an answer to the state strategies during the pandemic.
It is usually emphasized that the relationship between migrants and the domestic objects from their home countries is essential for migrants' maintenance of their various identities. It is presumed ...that migrants need familiar objects to feel at home in new surroundings. This study focuses on the domestic material culture of transnational well-educated middle-class European women living in Belgrade. The aim of the paper is to discover what role domestic objects from their home countries play in their homemaking practices and everyday lives in Serbia. Ethnographic research was conducted for the most part in 2018. Levitt and Glick Schiller's theoretical framework on transnational 'ways of belonging' and 'ways of being' and Anthias' concept of 'translocational positionality' were applied. Furthermore, Pérez Murcia and Boccagni's framework on homemaking practices among migrants was discussed. Contrary to some similar studies of affluent migrants, the findings show that domestic objects from native countries evoke neither ethnic nor national sentiments. In some cases, they do not need them to feel 'at home' in new surroundings.
In developed European Union (EU) countries, migrants are thought to be less likely to have their children fully vaccinated. To investigate this idea, this study examines parental perceptions of child ...vaccination during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is based on semi-structured interviews with 42 Serbian migrants in the Netherlands, conducted in the summer of 2020. The aim was to determine if the pandemic changed these parents’ attitudes towards the Dutch healthcare system and vaccination in general. The paper’s theoretical framework juxtaposes a “risk society” approach with a governmentality approach. The majority of the parents surveyed had had their children vaccinated according to the Dutch national vaccination programme. However, the study shows that many Serbian migrants had negative attitudes towards the then forthcoming SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. I therefore conclude that new vaccines, such as the Covid-19 vaccine, act as risk technologies which create a new “risk environment” rather than being perceived as preventive health measures.
A major goal of the Republic of Serbia's foreign policy since 2000 has been the country's integration into the EU. In this respect, in 2012, Serbia became a candidate for EU membership. However, ...there has been a growing skepticism among the Serbian people about this objective. This ambivalence can be correlated not only with the recent economic crises in some EU countries but also with what are regarded as profound differences in cultural and religious values between Serbia and the EU. This is particularly significant since the majority of Serbia's population are adherents of the Serbian Orthodox Church, which is widely regarded as the defender of traditional values, as well as a staunch opponent of Kosovo's independence, secularization and "so called' modern Western values. Nevertheless, my recent research among a sample of Serbian Orthodox believers regarding their attitudes about the cultural ramifications of Serbia's EU integration is far more nuanced than these attitudes might otherwise appear to be.
In order to focus on the issue of everyday life in Serbia, I compare two books on the anthropology of future and time based on ethnographic fieldworks on “normal lives” after 2000 among people in ...Serbia (Žikić 2013) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (Jansen 2015). The main aims of this paper are to draw attention to these ethnographic studies and to induce repeated studies of “normality” in post-Yugoslav societies, especially in the context of the on-going Europeanization. The similarities in narratives of authors’ interlocutors and consequently in their research results reveal similar responses to current living conditions in these two states. On the one hand, informants see the current everyday life as “abnormal” in comparison to the high quality of life they consider to have lead in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, i.e. in the state that had functioned. On the other hand, Jansen’s and especially Žikić’s interlocutors have high hopes of the EU-integrations and the future lives within the EU in which they expect normal lives to be re-established. However, both authors notice that their interlocutors do not see themselves as agents of civic and political activism and are embedded in social practices of “waiting”, yearning for hope or expecting normality instead of their active engagement for a change.
The topic of this paper is the phenomenon, well known in sociological literature, of “prolonged youth” in contemporary post-socialist Serbia. Anthropological accounts, however, remain largely absent. ...We are interested in cultural representations of parenting and raising children in Serbia, in comparison to Western, mainly EU, parenting models. Therefore, we have conducted twelve semi-structured open-ended interviews with female EU citizens and Serbian parents living in Belgrade, on how their experiences of living in Serbia and/or different EU countries influence their cultural perceptions of being a good parent and having a good parenting style. We show that cultural representations of parenting and child-rearing and related practices influence family dynamics and the process of growing up in Serbia. Our results show that Serbian parents favour the “Western” parenting model even though they do not practice it. They find justification for being forced into “abnormal“ parenting in the current political and economic situation.
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