Jean Guiart

Jean Guiart (22 July 1924 - 4 August 2019)[1] was a French anthropologist and ethnologist specializing in Melanesia. From 1972 to 1982 he was president of the Société des Océanistes.[2] He was the son of the parasitologist Jules Guiart.[3]

Jean Guiart at his home in Punaauia in 2018

Guiart was born in Lyon to a long line of doctors and medical researchers.[2] He initially studied at the Protestant Faculty of Theology in Paris, before switching to study ethnology at the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE).[2] In 1944 he was employed by the Musée de l'Homme to help inventory its collection.[3] In 1945 he joined the Société des Océanistes.[3] In 1947 he graduated with a diploma in Oceanic languages from the École nationale des langues orientales vivantes and moved to new Caledonia to work for the French Institute of Oceania.[3] He completed a diploma in colonial ethnology from the Research Institute for Development and then did field work in the New Hebrides (modern Vanuatu).[3]

From 1968 to 1973 he was director of studies at the EPHE, and then from 1973 to 1988 director of the ethnology laboratory at the Musée de l'Homme.[1] From 1972 to 1982 he was president of the Société des Océanistes, and served as its vice-president from 1961 to 1971 and from 1982 to 1995.[2] After retiring he lived in Nouméa, and then in Punaauia in French Polynesia.[1] He founded the publishing companies Le Rocher-à-la-Voile in New Caledonia and Te Pito O Te Fenua in French Polynesia,[2] as well as the magazine Connexions.[4]

He died in Punaauia on 4 August 2019.[1]