On the occasion of Pride Month, we met the LGBTQI+ Archives collective, which is
carrying out a community living archives project, with a view not to shelteringthe vestiges of a bygone past from the passage of time, but rather to create aspace for the construction and transmission of a living collective memory. Focuson an emancipatory project struggling with public institutions. ---- Created in2017, the Collectif Archives LGBTQI+ defends a highly political vision ofarchives [1]. Far from the image of rows of dusty boxes accessible to a smallnumber of experts who have to show their white paws and gloved hands, thephilosophy of archives carried by the collective allows the reappropriation bythe people concerned of their history and their experiences. .Entrusted to public institutions, LGBT+ archives are not easily accessible: theyare scattered and their access is often restricted. They are made invisible, bythis inaccessibility but also because their conservation and their promotion aresubject to the classist and heteropatriarchal biases of public cultural policies.Against this dispossession, the collective is campaigning for the creation of anarchive center for LGBTQI+ memories and cultures, where the funds, accessible toall, would be managed independently and in the community, between the peopleconcerned.In this way, the power relations at work in institutional archival science arereversed. The people concerned are recognized as legitimate to tell, illuminateand transmit the story of their struggles and of "their cultures in the broadsense of the term and its codes" [2].As an example of this participatory vision of archives, the "We process acollection together" workshops, led by a professional archivist, open toeveryone. An archive box is opened there and the participants, through collectivediscussion, identify more relevant axes of interpretation and classification ofthe collections than what a professional archivist alone, foreign or foreign tothese minoritized and misunderstood cultures, would have mattered.What funds are we talking about?Correspondence, photographs, costumes, films, press, books, bar signs, leaflets,badges, mugs... the collective collects, sorts, inventories and distributes anyobject related to LGBTQI+ struggles and cultures. The living archives projectleads to hosting old funds but also what volunteers glean in demonstration. Inaddition, the Collective is busy producing oral archives to document contemporarystruggles and experiences.The fresco painted on the walls of the current room was composed from objectsdiscovered in the funds.Several orientations remain to be decided: how to circumscribe the LGBTQIculture? Should we prioritize the most minoritized memories ? As questions arise,the statutes of the Collective provide for responding to them democratically andcollectively, in particular in GAs. More broadly, in line with its ambitions fordemocratization and empowerment, all the orientations and militant activities aredeveloped in plenary and within the working groups.To carry out its archive project, the Collective has been asking the publicauthorities for several years to financially support the creation and part of theoperation (rent, salary of permanent staff) of a permanent premises. DespiteFrance's delay in this regard, the establishment of a community archive center isstill compromised: is it the autonomous management of archives that frightens theinstitutions of power?However, a large room is more than necessary, on the one hand, to store thearchives (the current lack of space to accommodate these archives is such thatdonations have already started before the Collective even launches the slightestappeal) and on the other hand to welcome the public and that the archives andmemories live on.Public institutions lagging behindWhile Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Prague, Los Angeles... all have a funded center,the City of Paris shows ambiguous support. Although it did offer in 2019 tofinance premises, the call for projects specified that "the conservation of thesaid archives will be ensured by public conservation institutions" [3]. Ignoringthe project of community and autonomous management, the activists of thecollective are thus confined to handling tasks, possibly sorting, and then haveto hand over.In 2021, the elected officials are publicly delighted [4]with the unanimousadoption of a wish by the town hall, which this time mentions communitymanagement. But if the Town Hall did end up proposing a new premises, this timeit is the money, yet proposed in 2019, which is no longer available... Only theDILCRAH [5]is seriously committed, the Ministry of Culture meanwhile is for themoment as silent as LGBT + archives in national funds. Until when?It is possible to support the Collective by donating money [6], but also byleading the fight alongside it for living community archives. In Paris, twomeetings are soon to be organized to discuss the power of the community archive,on June 17 and 18 [7].Everywhere, it is possible to feed the archive collection with your personalarchives by contacting the Collective or while waiting for the upcoming onlinepublication of the DIY archives tutorial as part of the Big Tata [8]project,which will allow everyone to be author or author of its archives!Louise (UCL Montreuil)To validate[1]"Because Memories Die, Here Are 12 Priorities for LGBTQI Archives," TheHuffington Post, November 6, 2017.[2]"Who are we? on the Archiveslgbtqi.fr website.[3]Call for projects 2019 DDCT - "Promotion of LGBTQI+ Archives".[4]See for example: twitter.com/EELVParisCentre/status/1357400139015536643[5]Interministerial Delegation for the Fight Against Racism, Anti-Semitism andAnti-LGBT Hate[6]helloasso.com/associations/collectif-archives-lgbtqi/formulaires/1[7]All the programming can be found on the site https://archiveslgbtqi.fr/[8]Digital project co-managed by the Collective. The members of the Big Tatanetwork organize their meetings in Vaulx en Velin on June 3 and 4, 2023.https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Rencontre-avec-le-Collectif-Archives-LGBTQI-Des-archives-vivantes-parce-que-nos_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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