{"id":564,"date":"2021-08-12T12:00:36","date_gmt":"2021-08-12T12:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/vaccination-discourse\/?p=564"},"modified":"2022-08-18T07:06:37","modified_gmt":"2022-08-18T07:06:37","slug":"sprint-intern-chris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/vaccination-discourse\/2021\/08\/12\/sprint-intern-chris\/","title":{"rendered":"SPRINT Intern: Chris Sanderson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who are you?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hello! I\u2019m an undergraduate linguistics student going into my third year and I\u2019ve been working as a SPRINT intern on the Quo\u00a0VaDis\u00a0team\u00a0throughout\u00a0July.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is SPRINT?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

SPRINT (Summer Project Research\u00a0INTernship) is a\u00a0four week\u00a0internship available to students majoring in Linguistics and\/or English Language at Lancaster University. It\u00a0has been an incredible opportunity to learn more about what it\u2019s like to work in a research team and be involved with interesting, cutting-edge research.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What have you been looking at?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Anti-vaccination sentiment is not new! Whilst I’ve been here, I\u2019ve been investigating anti-vaccination movements throughout history.\u00a0As can be seen from the interactive timeline\u00a0below, I\u2019ve\u00a0detailed\u00a0events ranging from pamphlet\u00a0to policy,\u00a0to\u00a0a\u00a0demonstration\u00a0in 1885\u00a0involving a\u00a0decapitated Jenner effigy\u00a0and\u00a0over 80,000 protestors!\u00a0Besides providing extensive historical context to anti-vaccination, I\u2019ve been sourcing\u00a0over 50\u00a0documents from that period and learnt corpus techniques\u00a0from the world\u2019s leading corpus linguistic department\u00a0to\u00a0analyse them.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What has it been like working with the research team during COVID?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whilst it would have been nice to meet the team in person, it has been lovely to meet them all remotely, keep them updated on my findings and hear about what they had found. As the team come from various academic backgrounds and disciplines: forensic linguistics, biomedical and life science, even a member from Public Health England, I would always receive some super interesting comments and questions regarding what I found.<\/span><\/p>\n

What did you find interesting?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vaccination in the present day can be a relatively polarising issue\u00a0but\u00a0it was fascinating to learn that\u00a0this is not new;\u00a0anti-vaccinationists even in the 19<\/span>th<\/span>\u00a0Century were being called \u2018anti-everything cranks\u2019 accused of being neglectful or apathetic, whereas vaccinators were called \u2018vampires\u2019, \u2018vivisectors\u2019 and\u00a0\u2018butchers\u2019.\u00a0These names reflected views\u00a0at\u00a0the time about stereotypes of anti-vaccinators.\u00a0Anti-vaccinators,\u00a0however,\u00a0argued\u00a0they had \u2018conscientious\u00a0objections\u2019\u00a0and voiced concerns such as the increasing power of the state, particularly over individual bodies,\u00a0and concerns about the efficacy of the vaccine, both\u00a0of which are similarly voiced today.<\/span><\/p>\n

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