A quarter of a century Developing World Bioethics – An invitation to you, our readers

Abstract

When Willem Landman and I both met in South Africa twenty-five years ago - he a recent returnee from a lengthy stint as a bioethics professor in the United States, and me, an expat academic on a mission to establish a new bioethics unit at the Wits University's Faculty of Health Sciences in Johannesburg - we both agreed that we ought to do something about the lack of quality bioethics content relevant to but also from the global south. Research ethics training programmes, for instance, that were conducted by WHO and other international groups consisted at the time very much of content produced by well-meaning faculty in the global north and were directed at faculty in the global south. These activities, well-intentioned as they were, also constituted arguably ideology transfer in matters deemed ethics. There was little ‘homegrown’ academic bioethics capacity to speak of.

Much has thankfully changed since then. Flourishing bioethics programmes exist across the globe in the global south. Not to the same extent as in the global north, but they do exist, and they make their existence known both at home as well as on the international stage. There is still a somewhat uncomfortable dependence on the largesse of wealthy international funders to be reported, in terms of what research is undertaken, for instance. However, many programmes succeed today as their counterparts in the global north succeed, by teaching health sciences and life sciences students bioethics and medical ethics. ‘Hard money’ earned through teaching in universities matters as much in the global south as it matters in the global north!

Developing World Bioethics has been the target of some criticism because we made clear some years ago that we would not publish content of a religious nature such as, for instance, interpretations of particular religious scriptures. We still see ourselves in a tradition that understands ethics as an impartial enterprise seeking universal ethical truths. They cannot be found in sectarian approaches to ethics. Strangely, among the charges leveled against us were ‘colonialism’ and ‘epistemic injustice’. Let me merely note regarding the former, the religious content we have received over the years invariably was content unthinkable without the influence of colonialism that spread monotheistic ideologies (often violently) across continents. And while the ‘epistemic injustice’ charge tends to also be deployed liberally by critics, it's never quite clearly what it actually entails with regard to this journal, and how it is applicable to us, if at all.

However, given that bioethics is no longer ‘virgin’ territory in the global south, it seems right for us, as the co-editors of Developing World Bioethics, to ask you, our readers, what kinds of content you would like to see in the journal. What topics do you think have authors, who submitted their content successful upon review to the journal, neglected? Why do you think those topics deserve pride of publication place? Is ‘epistemic injustice’ a real concern that prevents you from submitting your content to Developing World Bioethics? If so, explain how this affects your decision-making on where to submit your research articles, so that we have an opportunity to address this in our guidelines to authors. What kinds of epistemic hurdles do you think has the journal adopted that you think you cannot overcome, if any?

One way to ensure that a topic you consider important finds its way into Developing World Bioethics is to volunteer to guest edit a special issue of the journal. Both Debora Diniz and I should be delighted to discuss your ideas. You can reach us through our Editorial Office. We are just an email away. Another way to ensure that a topic that you think should gain the attention of your colleagues is to suggest a guest editorial to us, where you can – commentary style, much like I did in this Editorial – make your case in relatively short form, with less of a time investment than would be required for the purposes of a peer reviewed journal article.

Take this Editorial then as an open-ended invitation to let us know where you think we fall short, suggest ways of making this journal more useful to you, and generally let us know about topics that you think we should cover in this publication.

The author declares no conflict of interest.