PLEXUS#10. ICA Declaration on LGBTQ+ Archives and Archivists

 After the Presidency statement on LGBTQ+ archives in June 28th, 2024, and the webinar to present the Working Group just one day before, the International Council on Archives (ICA) has taken a third step in the path of recognizing and valuing the archives of the sex-affective and gender diversity (SAGD) archives and the archival professionals who identified as SAGD people. Last October, 30th, the institution presented the Declaration on LGBTQ+ Archives and Archivists at the ICA Congress in Barcelona. The presentation concludes a consultation and text drafting process that has been ongoing for the past few months. The initial idea was conceived by Carlos Serrano Vásquez, ICA Secretary, as a way to put on value the work made by LGBTQ+ archives in the last decades, to normalize and visiblize the existence of LGBTQ+ community archives, as well as a call to institutional archives to look the collections they kept and the profession through a queer lens.

This Declaration follows the path marked in 2011 in Paris by the Universal Declaration on Archives (UDA) and in 2019 in Tandanya / Adelaide by the Declaration on Indigenous Archives. The Barcelona Declaration is more similar to UDA in its formal aspects, but the Tandanya Declaration also has been an inspiration to this initiative. Although the Tandanya Declaration is notably longer and has a greater number of points, the Barcelona Declaration is intended to be the foundational stone on which to build further work of in-depth analysis and development. The SAGD and the Indigenous peoples share a long tradition of oppression and erasure. The sex-affective and gender diversity is also a part of the indigenous traditions and backgrounds, and not an imposition by colonial authorities. Sexual diversity has been historically the norm, not the exception, among indigenous peoples all over the world. So, the Barcelona Declaration pays tribute to the efforts and work by the ICA Expert Group on Advocacy (ICA-AEG) and the Expert Group on Indigenous Matters (ICA-EGIM) and which materialized into two valuable texts of reference.

This Declaration wish to be an answer to all the processes of marginalization that have erased the vast majority of archives, collections and documents about SAGD people and organizations, following a plan to deny and annihilate any historical reference to this group of people that wasn't associated to their criminalization. SAGD people represent between the 10 and 20 per cent of human population, but the amount could be higher: estimating the demographics of SAGD people on a global scale is a difficult task, because in the most parts of the world discrimation has led people to conceal their sex and gender identities.

(Photo by Gina Pellicer)

The text has been drafted jointly by members of ICA-SAGDAA-WG and the Diverse Sexuality and Gender Section of the Society of American Archivists (SAA-DSGS), as they both are the only two archival professional entities that work on this topic in the world. Now the Declaration is embarking on a journey to spread and allow for more in-depth exploration. ICA-SAGDAA-WG and SAA-DSGS are planning various activities for this purpose. We'd like to have a webinar in the coming months as a dissemination event where the text and its underlying principles can be discussed.

So, many thanks to all the people who have been involved in the drafting process and in the presentation of the Declaration, and specially to the ICA authorities and staff who have had direct dialogue with the Group for this purpose: President Josée Kirps, Secretary Carlos Serrano Vásquez, María Paula García Mosquera, Clémence Almeras and Marianne Deraze. 

You can also know more about the Declaration at the ICA website.