Rivière, Thérèse (1901-1970)

Thérèse Rivière (1901-1970) was part of the first generation of professional French ethnologists. She left behind little writing and her career as an ethnographer was interrupted by illness shortly after WWII. Appointed head of mission by the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures, she left in December 1934 for two years in Algeria’s Aurès region, accompanied by Germaine Tillion, to work among a semi-nomadic population, the Shawia. She worked for the Ethnography Museum of the Trocadero and then the Musée de l’Homme, where she headed the “White Africa and Levant” department. Ethnographic objects, Neolithic excavation material, sound recordings, her twenty field notebooks, drawings, a film and photographs make up the bulk of Thérèse Rivière’s contribution to the knowledge of the Aurès.

Keywords: Archaeology | French Ethnology | Ethnographic drawing | Ethnographic photography | Ethnographic film | 20^th century | Maghreb | Algeria | Aures | Arab and Islamic Studies | Shawia | Musée de l’Homme | Musée d’ethnographie du Trocadéro | Marcel Mauss | Georges Henri Rivière | Henri Rivière | Germaine Tillion