LGBT Memory Project: A ‘Queer of Colour Critique’ Approach in Latin America and Caribbean Museums

Abstract

This article presents the LGBT Memory Project and a mapping of institutions currently constructing a Latin American, LGBTQI+ Museology. The need to reflect on the current conjuncture in Latin America is justified in view of the ultraconservative turn in the political and social fields: one that has affected how museums and museology are constructed and conceived of. We understand LGBT Museology as a concept particular to a museology made by LGBTQI+ people from low-income, working-class communities, who are non-white, Afro-Indigenous and/or live in favelas, especially when it is interested in associating museology with public policies from a Queer-of-Colour-Critique perspective, therefore considering sexuality as well as questions of race, economy, colour, and belonging. Finally, we consider that the aforementioned institutions work towards the construction of a museology capable of overcoming the discipline: one historically practiced by the white elites of Latin America, who are generally invested in making LGBTQI+ communities invisible, and oppressing them by means of several forms of epistemological violence.

Keywords:

• LGBT Museology
• Latin America
• Queer of Colour Critique
• Memory

Notes

1 This happened at the house where two of the authors, Boita and Baptista, lived together.

2 These memory indicators are spaces of sociability, resistance and LGBTQI+ culture, such as ghettos, nightclubs, houses, cinemas and parks.

3 Pajubá or Bajubá is a cryptolect or sociolect popularly known and used among LGBTQI+ people in Brazil. Its origins are linked to the Yoruba language and Afro-Brazilian religions.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tony W. Boita

A museologist and anthropologist, Tony W. Boita is an ICOM member, Coordinator of the LGBT Memory Project, Editor of the Revista Memoria LGBT (LGBT Memory Journal) and Director of the Museu das Bandeiras (Museum of the Bandeiras), Museu de Arte Sacra da Boa Morte (Our Lady of Good Death Museum of Sacred Art), and Museu Casa da Princesa (Princess House Museum). He has authored several articles on museology and LGBTQI+ communities.

Jean T. Baptista

Holding a PhD in History, Jean T. Baptista is an ICOM member, visiting professor at the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies (IGSF, McGill University, Canada, 2019), Professor within the Bachelor of Museology programme at the Federal University of Goias (UFG, Goias, Brazil) and Professor at the Postgraduate Programme in Social Anthropology (UFG). He is a researcher at the Memory LGBT Project and at the Ser-tao group (Gender and Sexuality Studies and Research Centre). He is the author of the book Dassie Missoes (2015) about Indigenous people and museums, and has published papers on museology and LGBTQI+ communities, black, and indigenous people.

Camila A. de Moraes Wichers

Holding PhDs in Archaeology (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil) and Museology (Lusophone University of Humanities and Technologies, Portugal), Camila A.de Moraes Wichers is a member of the Brazilian Archaeology Society, as well as an ICOM member, Professor in the Bachelor of Museology programme at the Federal University of Goias, Brazil, and Professor in the Postgraduate Programme in Social Anthropology at the same university. She is a researcher at the Ser-tao group (Gender and Sexuality Studies and Research Centre) and works at the UFG Anthropological Museum as an associate researcher.