The Place of Marginalisation in Bioethics: Do We Need the Concept?
Marginalisation is widely recognised as shaping health inequities, influencing access to care, resources, and social participation. Yet, despite its normative importance for health and justice, its conceptual role in bioethics remains unclear. This talk critically examines how marginalisation is addressed in bioethical scholarship, analysing its meaning, usage, and potential for further normative theorisation. I show that while definitions from adjacent fields such as political theory, nursing, and social science offer valuable insights, bioethics has rarely theorised marginalisation as a distinct concept. Instead, dynamics of exclusion are usually approached through established lenses such as vulnerability and epistemic injustice. As feminist work has reconceptualised vulnerability to include structural and relational dimensions, it is an open question whether bioethics needs a stand-alone concept of marginalisation. I will explore possible benefits and risks of such and invite discussion on addressing systemic exclusion more effectively.