Early colonists considered Australia not only a perfect prison, but also a tranquil sanctuary for their insane, unwanted, or inconvenient kin. But Melbourne’s supposedly sky-high rates of mental illness sparked a moral panic that would ripple through the centuries, even as different policies and technologies of border control have come and gone. We want healthy, hardy workers, not neurotic, inscrutable immigrants!

In this episode, Jinghua and Liz talk about eugenics, ableism, and how the colony has drawn and redrawn the border.