Unburied S1E3: The Swedish Curse

In the 1970s, a bookish young man was sorting shelves in a dusty library in apartheid South Africa. He noticed something strange — the way books were classified looked eerily similar to the way people were categorized outside. Years later, he would link that system back to a name few in his community had heard: Carl Linnaeus.

In this episode, Unburied follows the legacy of racial classification from Sweden to the Kalahari, and into the hands of Austrian anthropologist Rudolf Pöch. With insights from Nama crowned prince Samuel Dawids, anthropologist Alan Morris, historian Ciraj Rassool, and researcher Anette Hoffmann, we trace how systems of knowledge were used to rank, reduce, and collect human beings — all in the name of science.

Unburied is a production by ARC in partnership with Iziko Museums of South Africa. Written, produced and sound designed by Rasmus Bitsch and Neil Liddell.

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