Jean Guiart

Jean Guiart (22 July 1924 - 4 August 2019)[1] was a French anthropologist and ethnologist specializing in Melanesia.

In 1944 after World War II he was employed by the Musée de l'Homme to help inventory its collection.

[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 fieldwork in the New Hebrides (modern Vanuatu).

[2] After retiring he lived in the Pacific, first in Nouméa, where his wife's house was burned down by French or Caledonien nationalists because of his support for New Caledonia's independence from France,[4] and then in Punaauia in French Polynesia where he also supported independence and continued extensive writing on Pacific affairs and culture.