Uncertainty and Emotion in the 1900 Sydney Plague

When the 3rd global plague pandemic reached Sydney in 1900, uncertainty regarding the transmission of disease resulted in disagreement about how to contain the threat. Government officials and the public filled gaps in scientific knowledge with symbolism. People, places and the air itself were associated with dirt to provoke disgust and its affective defences of distance and purification. In preparation for the Federation of Australia, the Board of Health exercised authority to distance New South Wales from other British Empire colonies through sanitary reform. This Element demonstrates that in this historical moment, disgust was a means of producing and protecting social identity rather than a form of pathogen avoidance. By presenting flexibility in the disgust response and in the category of disgust objects, it also contributes to debates about the influence of knowledge on embodied emotion and affect.