Episodes

  • Reclaiming Heritage: Dinknesh and Sarah Baartman

    Reclaiming Heritage: Dinknesh and Sarah Baartman
    Oct 23 2024
    One of the world's oldest humanoid fossils, colloquially known as Dinknesh, or "Lucy," has intrigued paleontologists for decades. But her name is also a point of pride for Ethiopians. Meanwhile Laila narrates how fascination and racist attitudes around Sarah Baartman resulted in a harrowing, cautionary tale of human exploitation.
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    20 mins
  • Injected with fear: the legacy of colonial era vaccination programs

    Injected with fear: the legacy of colonial era vaccination programs
    Mar 4 2024
    Tropical medicine boomed as European powers claimed territories in Africa. Germany sent the famed Robert Koch and many others to the colonies to find cures to tropical illnesses - but also to test new medicines. This shadowy practice led to Africans being mistreated, and many died in the process, leaving a legacy of physical and psychological trauma that has never been properly cured.
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    12 mins
  • Unsettling continuities – from colonial racism to Nazism

    Unsettling continuities – from colonial racism to Nazism
    Feb 27 2024
    Respected German anthropologists made a career from dividing people by race, a new branch of science that conveniently put Europeans at the top. While eugenics and scientific racism was widely practiced in Western nations in the early 1900s, the ideas developed by Eugen Fischer and others served as the intellectual bedrock for race-based crimes committed by Nazi Germany.
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    11 mins
  • Why African nations still fight over colonial era borders

    Why African nations still fight over colonial era borders
    Feb 22 2024
    Why does Namibia have a bizarre panhandle? Why do some Ghanaians talk of being from "Western Togoland"? Much of this has to do with African borders drawn up in Europe during late 19th century. Borders that to this day are still very much contested, and have had deadly consequences. We explore how treaties designed to prevent war in Europe have caused conflict in Africa.
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    12 mins
  • How German colonization of Namibia resulted in genocide

    How German colonization of Namibia resulted in genocide
    Feb 14 2024
    After the decisive Battle of Waterberg between German and Herero fighters, colonial officers in the colony of South West Africa, today's Namibia, directed a violent, uncompromising persecution of Herero and Nama people. Their policies would result in the 20th century's first genocide.
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    12 mins
  • How German colonists changed power dynamics in Togo forever

    How German colonists changed power dynamics in Togo forever
    Feb 5 2024
    Germany's control over Togoland drastically altered traditional power structures, favoring compliant chiefs and running roughshod over cultural norms. We explore how punitive expeditions and colonial subjugation has shaped Togo to this day.
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    10 mins
  • Why did Germany target colonies in East Africa

    Why did Germany target colonies in East Africa
    Jan 30 2024
    In East Africa and the Great Lakes region, German colonial conquest spurred courageous resistance from many local East African groups against well-armed and violent colonial forces.
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    12 mins
  • The colonial legacy of Africa's place names

    The colonial legacy of Africa's place names
    Jan 23 2024
    In the context of colonial-era injustice, the renaming of landmarks almost seems like a footnote. But in this podcast we discover how renaming mountains, towns, and even people was another form of oppression. We also meet some characters who have outlived the colonialists' names, and why renaming landmarks is a form of reclaiming heritage.
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    10 mins