The Department of Anthropology is pleased to spotlight Guido Carlo Pigliasco (guido@hawaii.edu), an Italian anthropologist and former international lawyer whose interdisciplinary work brings together law, anthropology, visual media, and cultural heritage, with a sustained focus on Oceania and the Pacific world.
Academic Path and Research Focus
Guido Carlo Pigliasco’s academic trajectory reflects a distinctive integration of legal training and anthropological inquiry. After practicing law, his interests turned toward the anthropological study of law in non-Western societies, particularly the ways legal systems shape—and are shaped by—social and cultural contexts. In Fall 2000, he began postgraduate study in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, where mentorship from Andrew Arno guided his scholarly focus toward Pacific Islanders’ rights in tangible and intangible cultural heritage. His ethnographic research ultimately centered on the firewalking ceremony (vilavilairevo) on the island of Beqa in Fiji, examining questions of cultural property, commodification, and community authority. Through this work, he became closely involved in the Sawau Project, collaborating with local communities to film, document, reclaim, and represent cultural traditions through ethically grounded research. In 2020, he published The Custodians of the Gift, exploring the complex intersections of intangible cultural heritage, Christianity, and local belief systems on Beqa Island based on two decades of research.
Visual Anthropology, Media, and Scholarship
Pigliasco’s scholarship is strongly informed by visual anthropology and a long-standing commitment to public-facing research. His early visual work in Samoa, the Cook Islands, and Papua New Guinea helped shape a career that integrates film, photography, and digital media into both research and teaching. He has written and contributed to ten documentary films on contemporary Oceania for Italian television and is the author of the ethnographic novel Paradisi Inquieti, which challenges touristic clichés of the “South Seas” while bringing to light lesser-known Italian histories in Oceania. Furthermore, his Storie Straordinarie di Italiani nel Pacifico (with Marco Cuzzi) portrays the narratives and memoirs of unhonored, enigmatic, buried in oblivion Italian pioneers in fin-de-siècle Oceania, intersecting and clashing with the postmodern clichés. His peer-reviewed publications span the United States, Italy, and Japan and include co-edited volumes such as At Home and in the Field: Ethnographic Encounters in Asia and the Pacific Islands, reflecting his sustained engagement with ethnographic practice across regions and media. For publications and ongoing research, visit his profiles on Academia.edu and ResearchGate.
Teaching, Service, and Engagement
At the University of Hawai‘i, Pigliasco lectures in the Department of Anthropology, teaching courses that include Culture and Humanity, Visual Anthropology, Anthropology of Tourism, and Pacific Island Cultures. He offers his expertise as a Foreign Law Consultant to the Supreme Court of the State of Hawai‘i and the Italian Consulate of Honolulu. In recognition of his scholarly, exploratory, and cross-cultural contributions, he was named a National Fellow of the Explorers Club in New York in 2010.
