Jean Guiart (22 July 1924 - 4 August 2019) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist specializing in Melanesia. From 1972 to 1982 he was president of the Société des Océanistes. He was the son of the parasitologist Jules Guiart.
Guiart was born in Lyon to a long line of doctors and medical researchers. He initially studied at the Protestant Faculty of Theology in Paris, before switching to study ethnology at the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE). In 1944 he was employed by the Musée de l'Homme to help inventory its collection. In 1945 he joined the Société des Océanistes. 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. He completed a diploma in colonial ethnology from the Research Institute for Development and then did field work in the New Hebrides (modern Vanuatu).
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. 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. After retiring he lived in Nouméa, and then in Punaauia in French Polynesia. He founded the publishing companies Le Rocher-à-la-Voile in New Caledonia and Te Pito O Te Fenua in French Polynesia, as well as the magazine Connexions.
He died in Punaauia on 4 August 2019.
