Southern African human remains as property: Physical anthropology and the production of racial capital in Austria

Abstract

From 1907 to 1909, the Austrian anthropologist, Dr Rudolf Pöch (1870-1921), conducted an expedition in southern Africa that was financed by the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna. Pöch enjoyed administrative and logistical support from Austria-Hungary as well as the respective colonial governments and local authorities in the southern African region. During this expedition, he appropriated the bodily remains of more than one hundred people and shipped them to Vienna. When Pöch started teaching anthropology and ethnography in 1910, the remains became an essential part of the first ‘anthropological teaching and research collection’ at the University of Vienna.