From Patients to Citizens-Narrative Solidarity in Healthcare

This article analyzes the meaning of solidarity for bioethics and healthcare. Drawing on the anthropology of embodiment, it argues that solidarity arises upon relations of care for our vulnerable bodies and transforms it into our common democratic project. Its main focus is, therefore, not on distribution, which is the purpose of justice, but on the recognition and democratic inclusion of persons who-due to the vulnerable condition of their bodies-are still deprived of full participation in the public sphere. By reorienting caring relationships around the horizontal axis, solidarity obliges us to treat a person who is cared for not only as a passive recipient of healthcare goods, but as a fellow citizen and a partner in the process of care. It is argued that the model of narrative citizenship, by establishing discursive equality between a patient and a physician, can contribute to greater inclusion of vulnerable individuals into our societies.