David Webster (1945-1989): tensions between anthropological practices and political engagement in southern Africa

• Grant number: 22/08515-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: December 01, 2022
• End date: November 30, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Luís Felipe Bueno Sobral
• Grantee: João de Regina Maris dos Santos e Cassalho
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 19/05567-5 - Historiography of anthropology, AP.JP

Abstract

The present project deals with the work, life, and intellectual trajectory of David Webster (1945-1989), an anthropologist and south African activist murdered by the apartheid regime. Better known in South Africa for his political activity than for his academic work, his ethnography, the result of his doctoral research, The Chope Society: Individual and alliance in the south 1969-1976, a unique work of Anthropology in Mozambique. Produced, however, a particular conjuncture of decolonization's, armed struggle, civil war, activism against apartheid and repression in southern Africa, as well as sensitive changes in the theorizations and practices of anthropology, his work was not published until 20 years after his death. Adhering to critical trends in what he came to perceive as conventional or irrelevant anthropology in a context of political radicalization, Webster refused to have his thesis published, but pursued his professional career as a professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of the Witwatersrand, torn between political activism and professional performance of the discipline. The objective of this research is to understand how this duality is expressive of relationships, dynamics and tensions between anthropological practices and political engagement. Not enough, it is also an exercise in historiographical reconstruction that relates social dimensions that, at times, are presented as separate. By intersecting the life, political, intellectual, and institutional trajectory of David Webster, we seek to problematize stable and conventional forms of the historiography of anthropology, investigating how the political activism and professional practices of an anthropologist connect to the trends and tensions of a context specific history of anthropology in southern Africa.