Rational Sceptics: Contestations of Science and Conspiracy in the Czech Republic

Abstract

Covid-sceptics in the Czech Republic relate strongly to the idea of universal science. They understand this universality as emerging through the participation of ordinary citizens in scientific knowledge-making. Rather than then belonging solely to the experts, science ought to be democratic and accessible. This article describes several ways in which Czech Covid-sceptics contest the boundaries of science and devise their own theories, observations and experiences as scientific. I describe how Covid-sceptics mobilize their embodied experience of the pandemic as evidence and intertwine this embodied knowledge with narratives of universal science. By relating to the notion of the rational, educated and self-informing citizen, they are able to enter into a relationship with science even despite the lack of formal expertise. Scientific universality becomes a point of contestation through which alternative knowledge is linked to the imaginaries of ‘good science’ and scientific authority.