Rhetorics of Refusal: Medical Dissent and the US-Somali Diaspora

by Kari Campeau

Rhetorics of Refusal focuses on a recent public health crisis—Minnesota’s 2017 measles outbreak—to recast vaccine refusals less as products of poor health literacy or disinformation and more as strategic and generative acts of noncompliance. The outbreak, which primarily affected unvaccinated Somali children, occurred at the nexus of declining vaccination rates, spiking autism concerns, antivaccination predation, and a fraying public health infrastructure. However, during a year-long ethnographic study at a Somali health center, Kari Campeau found that personal stories from parents offered a much different picture of vaccine refusal than the one painted by news media. Tracking refusals across four sites, Campeau argues for the importance of approaching refusals as rhetorical and participatory strategies that hold institutions accountable, press for change, and practice care within emergent biosocial communities. Moreover, she views refusal as necessary and potentially transformative in situations where refusers have little access to power or platform. By contextualizing refusals in longer cultural and political histories, Campeau unsettles traditional narratives of medical dissent while offering new entry points into discussions on racialized biopolitics, care, disability, and public health.

228 pages, Paperback

Published May 28, 2025