Risk, emotion and responsibility: an analysis of the storylines used by vaccine hesitant mothers

Under processes of responsibilisation and individualisation in the ‘risk society’, as well as discourses of intensive motherhood, mothers are expected to make ‘good’ decisions regarding their children’s health. Consequently, decision-making concerning childhood vaccination becomes an emotionally challenging process, as mothers strive to minimise risk while simultaneously promoting and protecting health. Existing research shows that a substantial number of parents of young children have concerns regarding childhood vaccination. This article aims to examine how mothers who identify as vaccine hesitant dynamically construct risk, emotion, and responsibility when accounting for their decisions about childhood vaccination. Based on 15 in-depth interviews conducted in Belgium, this article reports the findings of a discourse analysis. For the latter, we draw on positioning theory and Lupton’s emotion-risk assemblage. The findings report three storylines that mothers discursively construct when discussing risk and responsibility in relation to childhood vaccination, namely a health promotion, a maternal protection and a critical healthcare consumer storyline. These storylines help to clarify the fluid and multidimensional nature of the mothers’ accounts of vaccine hesitancy. Furthermore, the findings provide empirical evidence for the use of the emotion-risk assemblage, as we find that vaccine hesitant mothers construct risk in relation to feelings of safety, control, empowerment, anxiety, fear, worry, intuition, vulnerability, being overwhelmed, pity and contempt. Overall, the findings demonstrate that when accounting for their decisions concerning childhood vaccination, hesitant mothers assume responsibilities within a context of social and gendered vulnerability, which affects their constructions of risk.