Carmita Eliza J. Icasiano

Carmita Eliza J. Icasiano holds a PhD in Anthropology from the State University of New York at Binghamton. She graduated with a master’s degree in Philippine Studies from the Asian Center of the University of the Philippines Diliman, and a bachelor’s degree in Humanities from the University of Asia and the Pacific. After college, she joined the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Museo ng Kalinangang Pilipino where she carried out research and writing, museum collections care, and conceptualization and production of exhibitions. 

In 2010, she was awarded a research fellowship by the Asian Cultural Council that took her to study Philippine textile collections in US museums such as the Fowler Museum, the Yale Peabody Museum, the Peabody Museum in Harvard University, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Her dissertation, titled “PastForward: Philippine Likhang-Bayan Objects as Intangible Cultural Heritage,” examines the tension between traditional crafts making, efforts at heritage preservation by local governments, and the role of social entrepreneurship. Her current research interests include materialities of objects, intangible/living heritage, and heritage sustainability.