Black bodies and Bioethics: Debunking Mythologies of Benevolence and Beneficence in Contemporary Indigenous Health Research in Colonial Australia

We seek to bring Black bodies and lives into full view within the enterprise of Indigenous health research to interrogate the unquestioned good that is taken to characterize contemporary Indigenous health research. We articulate a Black bioethics that is not premised upon a false logic of beneficence, rather we think through a Black bioethics premised upon an unconditional love for the Black body. We achieve this by examining the accounts of two Black mothers, fictional and factual rendering visible the racial violence Black bodies have been subjected to. We call for a Black bioethics that reimagines the Black body as beautiful and belonging-to both someone and somewhere.