Contagious objects: artefacts of disease transmission and control at North Head Quarantine Station, Australia

Abstract

ABSTRACTFrom 1828 to 1984, North Head Quarantine Station was the first port of call for many immigrants seeking a new life in Australia. The institution was intended to confine disease, via the bodies and objects that conveyed it, and prevent it from spreading throughout the Sydney populace. Despite being a public health institution, an initial functional analysis found that only a small subset of artefacts associated with the site were medical in nature. This article draws on the assemblage of North Head to consider how the material culture of quarantine extends beyond medical instruments. By re-evaluating the assemblage through a disease-centred, ‘epidemiological’ lens, the author demonstrates how disease permeates throughout the quarantine assemblage, enmeshing artefacts, bodies and contagions within a complex web of relations.