ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the contribution of phenomenology and poststructuralism to feminist bioethics. The first section discusses phenomenology, particularly as construed by Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Emmanuel Levinas. This illustrates the importance of phenomenology for understanding the subjective experience of health and illness, as well as for understanding the impacts of technology within a given lifeworld. Section two turns to the broad approach known as poststructuralism; it focuses on the work of Michel Foucault, and briefly discusses the work of Judith Butler and Jacques Derrida. This discussion highlights the contribution of this approach to understanding power and subjectivity. The chapter points to ways in which this work has already been useful within bioethics, especially feminist bioethics, but also argues that phenomenology and poststructuralism can contribute more to understanding and remedying the unequal distribution of health and health resources.
