Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania

The Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania (ASAO) is an international scholarly society dedicated to the anthropology of the Pacific. ASAO welcomes anyone interested in the lives of Pacific people, including scholars working in Native/Indigenous Studies, Pacific Studies, Cultural Studies, and other disciplines.

For over fifty years, ASAO has served to connect scholars from across the globe and to further knowledge of the Pacific. Our annual meeting has played a role in the origin of several important pieces of Pacific scholarship, including Epeli Hau‘ofa’s essay “Our Sea of Islands” and Marshall Sahlins’s “Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities”.