The Language of Pain: Punishment and Intelligibility at the Medical Border

Liam Gillespie

Journal of Borderlands Studies, 2025, vol. 40, issue 2, 379-394

Abstract: Borders require subjects to give an account of themselves so they can be formally “recognised” by the State. This recognition determines whether the subject can cross the border, and any conditions placed upon crossing. By tying mobility – which is so often essential to life – to the capacity to get recognized in the “right” way, borders reveal what is at stake in what Judith Butler calls intelligibility. This article explores the problem of intelligibility with respect to the medicalization of borders, where medical knowledge is co-opted to establish border-crossing criteria. Using Australia’s “Medical Evacuation” legislation as a case study, I show how medical borders place an impossible demand on those that come before them: namely, to provide “evidence” of pain and trauma so border crossing can be facilitated, and punishment avoided.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/08865655.2024.2330059

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