Johanna Nurmi is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Turku, Department of Social Research. Her current work is focused on tracking and analyzing vaccine refusal and hesitancy based on fieldwork with vaccine-critical families and children’s preventive healthcare workers in Finland. Working as part of the Microbial Lives -project, she examines practices that are formed as novel microbiological research filters into the use of lay parents with alternative health views. In particular, she focuses on ‘alternative’ birthing practices and health practices involving avoidance of pharmaceuticals (especially antibiotics and vaccines).
Johanna is PI of the project Health, Knowledge and Expertise (Emil Aaltonen Foundation 2018-2020), which analyzes the criticism of biomedicine related to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and vaccine-criticism in Finland in the past 100 years. She is also co-editor of a forthcoming volume Assembling Therapeutics: Subjectivity, Materiality and Politics in New Therapeutic Practices (Routledge, 2019).