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.