Ethox Seminar: Do We Need a Concept of Marginalisation in Bioethics? Empirical Insights and Conceptual Directions
Dr. phil. Elisabeth Langmann, Research Associate (Postdoc) Institute for Ethics and History of Health in Society, University of Augsburg, Germany DFG project: Centring marginalisation for effective and just public health policy and practice and Caroline Miles Scholar
Tuesday, 12 May 2026, 10.30am to 12pm
Register hereAbstract
Marginalisation is increasingly recognised as a determinant of health, shaping inequities in access to care, resources, outcomes, and policy attention. Yet despite its normative significance, its conceptual status within bioethics remains underdeveloped. This talk begins by examining how marginalisation currently appears in bioethical literature, identifying recurring patterns of use and key conceptual gaps.
To extend this analysis, I conducted a qualitative interview study with informal supporters, family members, friends, and others who accompany, translate, coordinate, and navigate when formal systems fall short. Positioned between supported persons, institutions, and infrastructures, these participants offer a distinctive entry point into how marginalisation unfolds in everyday questions surrounding health and care.
Across interviews, marginalisation emerges not as an exceptional event but as a routine by-product of institutional defaults and non-adaptive procedures that presume a narrow “standard user”. When complexity arises, through chronic illness, language barriers, administrative burdens, fragmented responsibilities, or intersecting needs, these defaults generate frictions that can delay care, obstruct access and intensify dependence on private support. In this way, informal support becomes existential rather than optional.
Bringing these empirical insights into dialogue with conceptual analysis, the talk examines what these perspectives reveal about whether and how bioethics might benefit from developing a more explicit concept of marginalisation.
meeting details
Tuesday 12th May at the BDI, Lower Ground Seminar Room 1.
10:30-12:00.
Registration
This event is for university members only. If you wish to join online, please register here.
Speaker
Dr phil. Elisabeth Langmann
Research Associate (Postdoc) Institute for Ethics and History of Health in Society, University of Augsburg, Germany DFG project: Centring marginalisation for effective and just public health policy and practice and Caroline Miles Scholar.