David Webster (anthropologist)

David Joseph Webster
Mosaic, David Webster Park
Mosaic, David Webster Park
Born
David Joseph Webster

(1944-12-01)1 December 1944
Died1 May 1989(1989-05-01) (aged 44)
Troyeville, Johannesburg, South Africa
Cause of deathMurder (assassination)
Resting placeWest Park cemetery, Johannesburg
NationalitySouth African
Alma materUniversity of the Witwatersrand
Scientific career
FieldsSocial anthropologist
InstitutionsRhodes University
University of the Witwatersrand
Notable studentsJohnny Clegg
Bruce Fordyce

David Webster (1 December 1944 – 1 May 1989) was a South African academic and anti-apartheid activist. He worked as an anthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he was a senior lecturer at the time of his assassination.

Webster was a founding member of the Detainees' Parents' Support Committee (DPSC) in 1981, a founder member of the Five Freedoms Forum, and a committed comrade in the United Democratic Front. Webster was also an active member of the Orlando Pirates supporters' club and he assisted in the mobilisation and organisation of South African musicians during the Struggle in the 1980s.

He was a long-term ethnographic researcher and his work near Kosi Bay on the Mozambican border resulted in a number of peer-reviewed academic publications.

Webster was assassinated by apartheid security forces outside his home on 1 May 1989.