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PLEXUS#09. GALA, the rainbow archive of South Africa

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The GALA Queer Archive (GALA) is a catalyst for the production, preservation and dissemination about the history, culture ans contemporary expericences of LGBTQIA+ people in South Africa. The archive was established as a response to the continued erasure and omission of Sex-Affective and Gender Diversity (SAGD) community history from official museums and archives, even in the wave of new histories and heritage being celebrated and emphasised in post-apartheid 1990s South Africa. The name of the organization was previously known as The Gay and Lesbian Archives of South Africa, from were it got the acronym GALA. In 2007, tha name was changed to its present form. The institution was founded in 1997 as an offshoot of the South African History Archives (SAHA), created in 1988 by a group of anti-apartheid activists as a non-profit organization and a community archive closely connected to the United Democratic Front (UDF), the Congress of South African Trade Unions (CSATU) and the African Nat...
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PLEXUS#08. IAW y los Archivos LGBTQ+ / IAW and the LGBTQ+ Archives

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 De nuevo llega el mes del Orgullo y, con él, el Grupo de Trabajo sobre Archivos y Archivistas de la Diversidad Afectiva, Sexual y de Género de ICA cumple su primer aniversario. Para celebrarlo os ofrecemos la reseña con las dos aportaciones sobre el tema que pudimos seguir en el ciclo de presentaciones y conferencias de ICA para la Semana Internacional de los Archivos entre el 9 y el 13 de junio. La primera aportación fue a cargo de Arcelia Paz-Padilla en el ciclo de conferencias relámpago  Inclusión y representación en las prácticas archivísticas  celebrado el pasado 10 de junio. Arcelia nos acercó a la realidad del Archivo Lesbiano Feminista Patlatonalli  que se conserva en la Universidad de Guadalajara (Jalisco, México). Con el título Entre lo privado y lo público: desafíos éticos en el acceso a los Archivos Lésbico-Feministas de Patlatonalli , Arcelia presentó brevemente el Archivo, que recoge la actividad de la asociación homónima, en funcionamiento en la capit...
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PLEXUS#07. International Archives Week 2025

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 Are you prepared for the seventh edition of  ICA International Archives Week #IAW2025 ? Get ready for a week of webinars, lightning talks and workshops under the motto #ArchivesAreAccessible - Archives for Everyone. In her message to celebrate the International Day and Week of Archives, ICA President, Josée Kirps, states that "we celebrate archives not just as collections of documents, but as doorways to truth, memory and identity." Therefore, accessibility matters. "Archives are powerful and, open to all, they become a true force for justice, inclusion and connection". ICA has organized a list of lightning talks and webinars to celebrate #IAW2025. Here is a selection of those related to ICA-SAGDAA-WG topics. You can enjoy all of them for free; just  register for each meeting on #IAW 2025 website. The lightning talks have been classified in four categories: 01-Overcoming Barriers to Archive Access 02-Harnessing Technology to Enhance Access 03-Archives in Society: ...
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PLEXUS#06. Europe's Day

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 May, 9th is the Day of Europe. We commemorate the Schumann's Declaration in pro of an European Union (EU) proclaimed in May, 9th, 1950. To celebrate the 75th anniversary of Schumann's Declaration, today we look at the main LGBTQIA+ archives in Hungary, a European country where the rights of the LGBTQIA+ are specially in danger because of the attacks from the Government, lead by the far-right party Fidesz, since National Anti-LGBT Law was approved in 2021. This violation of Human Rigths is particularly serious given that Hungary has been a member of the EU since 2004. Recently the Parliament, controlled by Fidesz, has banned any kind of parade or public celebration of Pride in the country violating the protective legislation to the LGBTQIA+ community by the EU institutions.     Art installation in the Atrium of Justus Lipsius Building in Brussels during Hungary's European Council Presidency in the second semester of 2024 (EU) Háttér Society was founded in 1995 and is th...
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PLEXUS#05. The Historical Archive of the Lesbian Feminist Movement in Mexico

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 To comemorate March as Women's History Month today we dive into the Historical Archive  Lesbian Feminist Movement Historic Archive of Mexico (Archivo Histórico del Movimiento Feminista de Lesbianas en México).  The archives takes de name also of Yan María Yaoyólotl Castro (AHMFLM-YMY). Yaoyólotl Castro is one of the key figures of the lesbo-feminist movement in Latin America. She began the lesbo-feminist fight creating the first organizations in 1977 and linking them to radical left-wing positions and entities such as the Communist Party of Mexico and other trotskist organizations. In parallel, Yaoyólotl has developed a career as an artist and philosopher. AHMFLM-YMY keeps documents and collections related to the lesbian-feminist and lesbofeminist movements in Mexico from its creation in 1976. The archives is settled at Yaoyólotl Castro's home in Colonia del Lago, Mexico City. It contains close to 10.000 documents and references including videos, posters, images, publica...
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International Day against LGBTphobia in Sports

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On February 19th we commemorate the International Day against LGBTphobia in Sports celebrating the birthday of Justin Fashanu, born in Nigeria in 1961, and the first football player openly gay during his active professional  career in the England's Premier League. His process of coming out was the end of this career and even of his life when he was uncapable of afford an unproven accusation of sexual abuse in 1998. (By http://www.7sur7.be/7s7/fr/1510/Football-Etranger/article/detail/757282/2009/03/10/Un-club-de-football-pour-gays-voit-le-jour-en-Angleterre.dhtml, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24030254) Founded in 2008, The Justin Campaign was created in his memory by the LGBTQ+ community in London. With homophobia still prevalent at both grassroots and professional level, the campaign’s aims include raising awareness through a strong focus on art, events, education, and sport. The Justin Campaign’s stated goals include seeking "to challenge the stereotyp...
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Lesbian Women at Arolsen Archives

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In the last July issue (no. 175) of Archives and Human Rights , the newsletter of the ICA's Section on Archives and Human Rights  (ICA-SAHR) , we know about the difficulties of Lesbian women in Austria and Germany during the 1940s and 50s thanks to the documents kept by the Arolsen Archives. The Arolsen Archives are a unique international organization that results as a consequence of the end of World War II. In 1943, the International section of the British Red Cross was asekd by the Headquarters of the Allied Forces to set up a registration and tracing service for missing people. The organization was formalized under the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces and nmaed Central Tracing Bureau (CTB) a year later. Once finished the war, the bureau was moved from London to Versailles, and then to Germany. first in Frankfurt am Main and finally settled in Arolsen (changed its name to Bad Arolsen in 1997), northern Hessen. This beautiful Baroque town was not destroyed because ...
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