“Nobody Likes A Radical Queer” Queer Materials in Audiovisual Collections
Name Marin Rappard Address Spreeuwenpark 109 1021GV Amsterdam Phone number +31652213921 Email [email protected] Programme Heritage Studies: Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image Student Number 10464425 Supervisor Manon Parry Second Reader Eef Masson Date 15 January 2018
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I want to thank my supervisor Manon Parry, for her guidance, comments, and patience throughout my thesis writing process. I also we gratitude to Lonneke van den Hoonaard and Jasper Wiedeman of IHLIA, Bas Agterberg of The National Institute of Sound and Vision, Mirella Gelauf of The City Archives of Amsterdam, and Paul de Jong of Jonge Historici, for sharing their time and insights about their organizations with me. Finally, a big thanks to my family and friends as well for their continued support and love.
2 TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION ...... 4 1.1 Terminology ...... 5 1.2 Literature Review ...... 7 1.3 Methodology and Structure ...... 13
2. THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF SOUND AND VISION (NIBG) ...... 15 2.1 The Archive ...... 15 2.2 The Catalogue ...... 18 2.3 The Collection ...... 19 2.4 The Museum and Current Exhibitions ...... 25
3. THE INTERNATIONAL HOMO/LESBIAN INFORMATION ARCHIVE (IHLIA) ...... 31 3.1 The Archive ...... 31 3.2 The Catalogue ...... 36 3.3 The Collection ...... 38 3.4 The Exhibitions ...... 42
4. THE AMSTERDAM CITY ARCHIVES (SAA) ...... 45 4.1 The Archive ...... 45 4.2 The Catalogue ...... 48 4.3 The Collection ...... 51 4.4 Exhibitions and Projects ...... 53
5. CONCLUSION ...... 59
SOURCES CITED ...... 66
3 1. INTRODUCTION
On April third of last year, two Dutch politicians marched across the Binnenhof while holding hands to display their solidarity after two gay men were brutally attacked in Arnhem the day before. Major global news providers like The Guardian, the BBC and the New York Times shared a video of this gesture, after which it went viral and was viewed and celebrated all around the world.1 This act of solidarity is just one example of the power of moving images and of how lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersexual and queer (shortened to LGBTIQ)-issues have entered the mainstream in the Netherlands. People who identify as LGBTIQ are increasingly represented in popular culture and local communities.2 Museums and archives are, in theory, reflections of the society they function in, meaning they should also be inclusive of these communities, but they are often unmasked as institutions that reiterate canonical thinking and patriarchal power relations.3 In museology, moving towards more inclusive models has long been a topic of study and action has been taken to include minority histories and voices.4 In March of 2015, the International Homo/Lesbian Information Center and Archive (IHLIA), together with the Amsterdam museum and the Reinwardt Academy, organized a symposium called ‘Queering the Collections.’ As is noted on IHLIA’s website, “Queering the Collections (QtC) is a network of cultural professionals, researchers, and local government representatives, collaborating to increase the collection, interpretation, and exhibition of queer heritage and histories in the Netherlands.”5 The aim of this symposium and ongoing project is to offer heritage professionals the tools with which they can research, describe and unlock queer aspects of the objects in their collections.6 I fully support this goal, and in this thesis, I explore how the debates surrounding this subject
1 See Dan Bilefsky, “Dutch Men Hold Hands in Solidarity with Attacked Gay Couple,” New York Times, April 6, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/world/europe/dutch-men-hold-hands.html.https://www.nytimes. com/2017/04/06/world/europe/dutch-men-hold-hands.html; “Dutch Men Walk Hand in Hand for Solidarity After Gay Couple Attacked,” The Guardian, April 05, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/06/ dutch-men-hand-in-hand-solidarity-gay-couple-attacked. 2 Susan Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015); Ellen Schuurman, “Between Tolerance and Acceptance: Homosexuality on Television in the Netherlands, 1980-2013” (bachelor’s thesis, University of Amsterdam, 2014). 3 Joan M. Schwartz and Terry Cook, “Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory,” Archival Science 2, no. 1-2 (2002): 1-19; Terry Cook, “Evidence, Memory, Identity and Community: Four Shifting Archival Paradigms,” Archival Science 13, no. 2 (2012): 95-120. 4 Jocelyn Dodd and Richard Sandell, Including Museum: Perspectives on Museums, Galleries, and Social Inclusion (Leicester: RCMG, 2001). 5 “Queering the Collections – Seksuele en genderdiversiteit in erfgoed,” IHLIA LGBT Heritage, accessed May 21, 2017, http://www.ihlia.nl/queering/. 6 “Queering the Collections – About,” IHLIA LGBT Heritage, accessed October 22, 2017, http://www.ihlia.nl/ queering-the-collections-advisory-board/.
4 can be applied to and used by archives harboring audiovisual collections to reflect critically on their practices and presentations of the past. I argue that audiovisual material could offer a unique view of the history and present of non-normative sexuality and gender and showcase experiences that could create more inclusive presentations. Through in-depth analyses of how sexual and gender diversity is represented within the audiovisual collections, policies, and presentations of three prominent institutions in the Netherlands, I offer an overview of how these organizations fit into the recent upsurge in queering archives and museums.
1.1 Terminology
One of the main issues in discussing non-normative sexuality and gender is that of terminology, which has changed considerably over time. The terms we now use, such as gay, lesbian, bisexual and queer, are relatively new in these meanings and will not address the true scope of material that might be available in an archive. As historian Claire Louise Hayward argues in her dissertation, this is especially true because users tend to search using modern terms.7 She uses ‘same-sex love’ instead of LGBTIQ, which “highlights both historical distance, and a historical continuum. It shows that same-sex acts and behaviours have existed throughout history, but that the concept of a sexual identity, and a community group who share this identity, is a modern one.”8 In this thesis, I have also chosen to use same-sex love in recognition of this variability. Additionally, I have decided to adopt the term queer, because it is an identity that encompasses a range of gender and sexual expressions. Furthermore, it cannot easily be categorized, acknowledges the fluidity of these identities, and provides a more politically charged connotation that is lacking in discussions of same-sex love in the Netherlands. Using ‘queer’ also produces an ability to deal with issues of intersectionality, as it is not only focused on disrupting established notions of gender and sexuality, but also on potentially encompassing race, ethnicity, class, and (dis) ability. The use of queer and same-sex love is also done to minimise the potential misidentification of people as lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans when they either did not identify themselves with those words or when they lived in a
7 Claire Louise Hayward, “Representations of Same-sex Love in Public History” (Ph.D. diss., Kingston University, 2015), 10-11. 8 Ibid., 10.
5 time where these categories did not yet exist. When LGBT(IQ) or homosexuality is used, I do this to reflect the terminology used by the institutions that are analysed in this thesis. Using ‘same-sex love’ and ‘queer’ is also an attempt to avoid implying a single, shared experience. As noted by public historian Susan Ferentinos, the LGBT acronym “uneasily lumps together specific concepts, political agendas, and social experiences of distinct groups”, especially as lesbian, gay and bisexual refers to an individuals’ sexual orientation, while transgender is an expression of gender identity.9 The acronym also relates to the problem of using the term ‘community’ to describe these various groups, namely that, in her words,
these four distinct groups of people have not always understood themselves to be part of one community - nor do they necessarily agree with that premise now. In addition, these terms are often employed as a gesture at inclusivity to bisexual and transgender people, when in reality the “community” is assumed to be gay or lesbian, and the inclusion of others is in name only.10
The concept of community is contested but can be useful to describe certain groups that share a specific experience, in this case, their “shared sexual or gender identities and their exclusion from other communities.”11 To acknowledge the diversity within these groups, I always use communities when referring to these shared experiences, and stress that people can belong to multiple communities or explore how some are excluded even from these specific groupings. Doing this is also to be reflexive of how, even within the same category, experiences are multitude or even competing. Additionally, ‘queering’ is used as a verb. In this context, queering means acknowledging diverse sexual and gender identities in collections. According to Lonneke van den Hoonaard, director of IHLIA, the invisibility of queer aspects of specific collections takes place on three levels. First, heritage institutions lack policies that improve inclusivity and diversity in their collections. Second, even when objects of importance are identified, they are not on display. Third, there is a lack of access to queer aspects of holdings in the catalogue, due to their archivists and curators lacking knowledge on the subject.12 Though staff at archives, museums and other institutions presenting heritage are not thought to be
9 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites, 6. 10 Ibid, 5-6. 11 Hayward, “Representations of Same-sex Love in Public History,” 20. 12 Lonneke van den Hoonaard, “Queering the Collections: Seksuele en genderdiversiteit in erfgoed,” Vakblad voor Informatieprofessionals 4 (2015): 18.
6 unwilling, actively integrating histories of same-sex love into their descriptions or exhibitions is usually left off the table because they do not see how it is relevant or their responsibility to do so.13 Outside of academia, these institutions are often thought of as neutral repositories for the past, which results in a lack of understanding that how these organizations frame the past can have significant societal consequences, either by silencing some voices or by the domination of others. The idea of the Netherlands as a highly tolerant and accepting country concerning these communities also harms the suggestion that their representation in these kinds of institutions is necessary.14
1.2 Literature Review
Scholars have shown that how the past is represented by museums and archives influences how individuals and communities view themselves, and in turn how others view them. Historian Gerda Lerner proved that exclusion from historical narratives, in particular, has negative consequences for individuals and groups.15 In many ways, heterosexuality and the binary gender division is still presented as the norm from which other gender and sexual identities differ, a concept known as heteronormativity, or they are absent from the discussion entirely. Additionally, when histories of same-sex love are presented, archival audiovisual footage is under-utilized, as I will show in this thesis. To understand the audiovisual footage I am referring to, I will define what exactly qualifies as queer moving image materials. Curator Lynn Kirste identifies three kinds, namely that they are queer because of their content, because queer filmmakers made them or because audiences read them as queer. It was crucial to expand my research beyond queer cinema, to include a diverse range of queer moving images, since one of the leading challenges of archiving queer moving images is that they are most prominently independent and amateur productions, especially before the 1980s when independent queer filmmaking surged.16 Even before this, Kirste notes, queer people “shot and appeared in home movies and home videos, documented the activities of queer organizations, and filmed queer events.”17 As a result, Kirste argues that queer films and tapes are too scattered; amateur and
13 Lonneke van den Hoonaard (director of IHLIA) in discussion with the author, May 2017. 14 Gloria Wekker, White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race (Durham: Duke University Press Books, 2016), 108-138. 15 Gerda Lerner, “Why History Matters,” in Why History Matters (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 199-211. 16 Lynne Kirste, “Collective Effort: Archiving LGBT Moving Images,” Cinema Journal 46, no. 3 (2007): 134. 17 Ibid.
7 independent productions remain in the homes of their makers and are therefore likely to be stored in less than ideal conditions, and not in archives. Having been marginalized by mainstream cinema and television, the majority of moving images with a queer point of view, that “portray LGBT people as complex individuals rather than stereotypes, offer a diversity of race, age, ethnic background, politics, gender identification, and other qualities, and show LGBT people in the context of our relationships, families, and communities” are to be found on these films and tapes.18 Amateur and independent productions are usually not widely distributed, either, so typically there are only a few elements of each title.19 Ensuring their safekeeping is therefore of great importance for these communities. However, audiovisual archives and organizations seem to lack attention to these kinds of productions. For one, as audiovisual archivist and scholar Nina Rao observed, the International Federation of Film Archives’ (FIAF) Code of Ethics reflect the times in which they were written, meaning they lack a concern with a range of these nontheatrical moving images - specifically with “documentary film, amateur film, and home movies,” even though these “frequently have significant historical, cultural, or educational value, serving as a focus of discourse that enhances our collective understanding of individual, familial, and national historical circumstances.”20 This might be one reason why queer moving images are underrepresented in moving image archives. However, amateur and independent productions are not to be approached uncritically. As Rao argues, “they may be problematic with regard to the rights of the individuals represented.”21 The notion of consent, for example, is problematic since the power relations that inform this consent might mean there is a power imbalance between the filmmaker and filmed. Rao links this to films of indigenous peoples specifically, but her ideas can be extended to include minority representation more generally. As she argues, even if the filmmaker and filmed are from the same culture or even the same family, for example in a home movie, power is still
skewed by virtue of the fact that one person is holding the camera and one person is not- the holder decides what is recorded, when, and how. The camera also has power itself, often compelling and eliciting culturally conditioned
18 Kirste, “Collective Effort: Archiving LGBT Moving Images,” 134. 19 Ibid. 20 Nina Rao, “Representation and Ethics in Moving Image Archives,” The Moving Image 10, no. 2 (2010): 105. 21 Ibid., 106.
8 responses, such as smiling, from its subjects, regardless of their relationship to the operator.22
However, audiovisual archivist Snowden Becker reinforces their significance as well when he writes that “home movies have the ability to powerfully improve understanding and visibility for minorities whose histories may otherwise remain untold. The impact, for underrepresented groups especially . . . cannot be underestimated.”23 For these reasons, I explore in this thesis if and how they are collected and utilized in the diverse institutions discussed. Some might ask why such reflection would be necessary for a country like the Netherlands. The first to legalize gay marriage and globally known as a tolerant environment, it might seem like these issues are not urgent or even relevant to address here. However, it is this perceived tolerance that sociology scholar Jan Willem Duyvendak argues has depoliticised queerness in the Netherlands. More specifically, he writes that the early achievement of a “relatively favourable position” has meant that “homosexuals no longer feel the need to maintain a political gay identity.”24 Whereas in other parts of the Western world, AIDS activism led to a radicalization of queer movements, this was avoided in the Netherlands, where “radical articulations of queer activism remain marginal” and normalization of non-normative sexuality ensued instead.25 As Paul Mepschen, Duyvendak and Evelien H. Tonkens note, this “normalization does not imply that heterosexual normativity has been surpassed. Rather, the popular representation of gay identity has changed from a deviant other to the mirror image of the ideal heterosexual.”26 This practice reflects what Lisa Duggan has named ‘the new homonormativity.’ She argues that “homonormativity produces a politics that does not contest dominant heteronormative forms but upholds and sustains them.”27 Therefore, I argue in this thesis for a form of representation that underscores a range of experiences and identity expressions that are inclusive of the deviant nature of ‘the queer.’
22 Rao, “Representation and Ethics in Moving Image Archives,” 109. 23 Snowden Becker, “Family in a Can: Presenting and Preserving Home Movies in Museums,” The Moving Image 1, no. 2 (2001): 100. 24 Jan Willem Duyvendak, “The Depoliticization of the Dutch Gay Identity, or Why Dutch Gays Aren’t Queer,” in Queer Theory/Sociology, ed. Steven Sideman (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1996), 421. 25 Paul Mepschen, Jan Willem Duyvendak and Evelien H. Tonkens, “Sexual Politics, Orientalism and Multicultural Citizenship in the Netherlands,” Sociology 44 (October 2010): 971. 26 Ibid. 27 Lisa Duggan, “The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neoliberalism,” in Materialising Democracy: Towards a Revitalized Cultural Politics, eds. R. Castronova and D.D. Nelson (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), 179.
9 While it is true that gay men and lesbians have acquired rights and a sense of freedom unequaled by other parts of the world, this has not ensured their representation within institutions, either, and the perceived acceptance can mask the need to do so. As is stated on the IHLIA website, the cultural sector of the Netherlands increasingly realizes the marginalization or exclusion of same-sex histories in traditional curation. However, “stakeholders may still reject the importance of rethinking our policies and our practices,” and it is noted that “while some believe LGBTQI equality has already been achieved in Dutch society, homophobia persists. In fact, we are in the midst of a global backlash in which discrimination and violence on the basis of race, gender, and sexuality are in resurgence.”28 Stressing the importance of inclusivity within institutions presenting the past to the public to combat these issues remains a principal task. In recent years, the topics of diversity and inclusion are increasingly discussed in relation to audiovisual archiving as well. The importance of further attention to these matters is noted by Rachel Mattson, manager of Special & Digital Projects in the Archives of La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, when she argues that the takeaway from two considerable audiovisual archiving symposia was that “there’s no place in our work for the pretense of neutral professionalism. We need to articulate and deploy professional standards and models that place care-giving, justice-seeking, and community-oriented frameworks at the center of our practice.”29 However, there exists a gap between academic debates on audiovisual archiving and what happens in practice.30 While audiovisual archivists are clearly aware of their role as part of memory institutions, as is evident in documents like audiovisual archivist Ray Edmonson’s “Audiovisual Archiving: Philosophy and Principles,” the focus of their practices seem more technological.31 According to Edmonson, this is because concerns for the physical characteristics of audiovisual collections are vastly different and require much more attention and knowledge than, for example, paper collections. Specifically, “while in many institutions preservation is conceived as an ‘added extra’ to the functioning of the organization, it is
28 “‘The Art of Queering’ 16 June – About the Symposium,” IHLIA LGBT Heritage, accessed May 1, 2017, http://www.ihlia.nl/symposium-16-june-about/. 29 Rachel Mattson, “Can We Center an Ethics of Care in Audiovisual Archival Practice?,” XFR Collective, December 06, 2016, https://xfrcollective.wordpress.com/2016/12/02/can-we-center-an-ethic-of-care-in- audiovisual-archival-practice/. 30 “(…) there is insufficient dialogue between film archives and academia. Caught up in everyday practicalities, film archivists rarely have time to reflect on the nature of film and on the consequences deriving from new technologies on the viability of film as a medium”, in Giovanna Fossati, From Grain to Pixel: The Archival Life of Film in Transition (Amsterdam: Amsterdam university press, 2009), 15. 31 Ray Edmonson, Audiovisual Archiving: Philosophy and Principles (Paris, UNESCO; Bangkok, UNESCO Office Bangkok, 2016), http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002439/243973e.pdf.
10 conceptually central to the functioning of an audiovisual archive,” and this centrality “leads naturally to a related characteristic: the technological mindset of audiovisual archivists.”32 Although I understand the different levels of urgency surrounding these specific material issues and will therefore briefly touch on how the collections are preserved, I try to bridge the gap between theory and practice by contributing to an understanding of the discussed collections that is based in existing policies and practices, yet culturally situates them. Especially since audiovisual archiving is still developing as a field, implementing inclusive policies on which to build now is of great importance.
There are several reasons, other than the technical, as to why queer life is underrepresented in archives and museum. Ferentino identifies “four issues that have significantly contributed to this circumstance: cataloguing issues; questions of what makes an object queer; the sexual content of some objects; and the need for trust building.”33 Curator Lynn Kirste adds another, namely that titles that are very significant to queer communities may not hold this significance outside of these communities, so they are unlikely to be preservation priorities. The institutional type in which the materials are embedded affects the way these issues become clear. Archives that preserve and present queer moving image materials can roughly be divided into three institutional types. First, there are dedicated LGBTIQ-archives that collect all kinds of material and carriers, from paper to film, that focus on all aspects of LGBTIQ life. Second, there are non-LGBTIQ mixed media archives, such as municipal, regional, national or company archives that also have this varied array of carriers, but where finding material of queer importance is more difficult since it is not their primary focus or concern. Lastly, moving image archives are dedicated to audiovisual carriers, but may also lack this awareness. A more in-depth exploration of the differences, both positive and negative, between the different institutional types that hold queer audiovisual material is explored in each corresponding case-study chapter. Most of these issues also come to light in and relate to issues of access. How we encounter instances of same-sex love in these collections and presentations is therefore also central to every case study. Providing the right information at points of access, for example, is indispensable. As audiovisual archivist Nina Rao argues,
32 Edmonson, Audiovisual Archiving: Philosophy and Principles, 44. 33 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites, 112.
11 moving images are so influential in constructing public discourse, the archive has an ethical responsibility to inform any viewing audience of relevant context and to encourage an understanding of the peoples and cultures depicted as well as a responsibility to make policy decisions that encourage cultural awareness.34
The polysemic nature of moving images, or the ability to have multiple meanings, also needs to be considered in these scenarios. In gay or lesbian studies this might mean that a particular film is read as queer, even when the queer undertones might not be apparent at first sight. With regards to programming, this suggests that the audience should be informed of the possibility of these readings. Liz Czach further argues that programming is an important practice to pay attention to because decisions are based on taste, which has political dimensions and consequences, especially when it involves moving image materials of or by underrepresented groups of people.35 Mark Haslam, founder and director of the Planet in Focus Environmental Film and Video Festival, affirms that doing so entails that curators and programmers treat media artworks as tools, not just as products. Instead of merely screening a film, encouraging engagement that calls to action even after the screening is over, for example through introductions that contextualize and situate the film, can turn the screening into a tool for social evolution.36 Trust building might prove an important strategy to combat issues of access. For example, Edmondson stresses that audiovisual archivists have a “cultural and moral responsibility towards indigenous peoples” and “that collection material is handled and access given in ways that are compatible with the norms of their cultures.”37 In museology, codes of ethics usually stipulate that curators should work closely with those from whom the materials originate or whom they represent, since they “reflect the cultural and natural heritage of the communities from which they have been derived.”38 In the words of Rao, they may, therefore, “have a character beyond that of ordinary property which may include strong affinities with national, regional, local, ethnic, religious, or political identity. It is important therefore that museum policy is responsive to this possibility.”39 The involvement of the communities that are being represented has gained increasing attention in museology, but
34 Rao, “Representation and Ethics in Moving Image Archives,” 117. 35 Liz Czach, “Film Festivals, Programming, and the Building of a National Cinema,” The Moving Image 4, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 76-88. 36 Mark Haslam, “Vision, Authority, Context: Cornerstones of Curation and Programming,” The Moving Image 4, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 48-59. 37 Ray Edmondson, The Philosophy of Audiovisual Archiving (Paris: UNESCO, 1998), 46. 38 Ibid. 39 Rao, “Representation and Ethics in Moving Image Archives,” 107.
12 seems to be less discussed in relation to audiovisual archives. I consider how these issues are dealt with in the policies and practices of the institutions explored in each case-study chapter.
1.3 Methodology and Structure
In this thesis, I make use of studies from a range of academic fields, exploring debates within museum and archive studies, cultural theory, and queer/feminist theory to analyse the three case studies. Especially the latter two can be of great importance in examining the products of institutions dealing with queer objects and histories. As museologist Amy Levin argues,
feminist theory and its cousin, queer theory, are particularly valuable to museum practitioners because they offer frameworks for critical reflection on exhibitions and these are sufficiently flexible and capacious to be applicable to other forms of diversity. At their best, both kinds of theory acknowledge and incorporate cultural variations.40
To provide a broad overview of the audiovisual materials that are available in Dutch archives, I chose to analyze one archive that corresponds to each institutional type I have described previously. This means the audiovisual collections I examined were each stored in different organizational structures, namely within a national audiovisual archive, a paper- based municipal archive, and a dedicated LGBTIQ archive. These differences in reference points and contexts affect the way the audiovisual and queer aspects are embedded and presented to the public. The examination of these differences is a central theme of this thesis. The analyses took place through interactions with the institutions in the form of interviews and working with their catalogues and other access points such as their exhibitions and online web portals. I begin with an exploration of The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision (NIBG), which is the Dutch national audiovisual archive and museum. The archive is partly funded by the government and works closely with public broadcasters, who need their broadcasted materials almost instantly for re-use, which means providing access is one of their primary tasks. They have many materials that relate to queer communities, but they do not actively collect, preserve or present content that fits this description. I was able to work closely with their catalogue and stream many of the clips that related to same-sex love. As was mirrored in the sentiments of the institutions’ media history specialist Bas Agterberg, the
40 Amy K. Levin, Gender, Sexuality, and Museums: A Routledge Reader (Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: 2010), 49, EBSCOhost.
13 material can be used to depict the history of representations of same-sex love in the media, more so than provide personal accounts of queer experiences. As is clear from the collection policy, minority representation is not on the agenda in this archive, as they do not cater to any group specifically, except the ‘general public.’ In this thesis, I attempt to dismantle the assumption that this is suitable for all users, as it provides dominant views that support heteronormativity. The third chapter focusses on the International Homo/Lesbian Information-center and Archive, shortened to IHLIA. This is an organization based in Amsterdam, focused on acquiring and making available information surrounding LGBTIQ communities. The remnants of multiple independent archives are still found in these archives, which form the most powerful representations of queer experience in the audiovisual collection. It is an archive dedicated to LGBTIQ material, but not to moving images, so it is of interest to explore how paper and audiovisual materials are interwoven, and the role that the moving image gets to play in their presentations. Interestingly, amateur and or independent films are much less available then would be expected from a community-based archive. If audiovisual material is utilized, it is often in the form of oral history projects, so the implications of these ways of representing the queer past is an essential part of this chapter. In the fourth chapter, I move on to the City Archives of Amsterdam (SAA), a municipal archive that harbors many governmental and local archives, has a large variety of carriers, and where inclusive policy is actively encouraged. While some scholars argue that the emotional aspects of queer archival material are missing or suppressed in these types of organizations, the SAA’s inclusion of personal archives challenges these ideas. While audiovisual materials are under-utilized in representations of same-sex love, the organization has many ongoing projects to encourage trust-building with queer communities, such as a dedicated exhibition during EuroPride and a seat on the Queering the Collections board. Here, it is the organizational structure that most problematizes the use of these materials, which is, therefore, a key theme of this chapter. In the final, concluding chapter, I summarize and compare my most important observations of the previous case-study chapters. Based on these observations, I list several recommendations on how to use audiovisual imagery in representations of queer people and lives, and offer a view of the future of queer audiovisual archiving.
14 2. THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF SOUND AND VISION (NIBG)
2.1 The Archive
Het Nationaal Instituut van Beeld en Geluid (The National Institute of Sound and Vision), is the de facto Dutch National archive for all television, radio, and recently also printed press material.41 NIBG is one of the most extensive audiovisual archives in Europe, and their holdings make up over 800,000 hours of film, video, and sound. The institute is the result of a decision made by the Cabinet in 1995 that one national archive was needed that would be responsible for preserving and providing access to Dutch audiovisual heritage. Thus, a merger took place “wherein the public broadcasting radio, music and television collections, the Amsterdam based Stichting Film en Wetenschap collection, the film archive of the Rijksvoorlichtingsdienst and the Broadcasting Museum were combined.”42 The connection to public broadcasting companies is close enough to identify NIBG as a ‘production archive.’ Since 2006 they have ingested all broadcasts from public television and making their material available to these companies is one of their primary tasks. For this reason, quick access is a key objective, which means materials are quickly made available to the general public as well. Although their holdings include many different media, some paper, and equipment, most of the content thus stems from public broadcasts, both television and radio. Using public broadcasts problematizes queering the collection, since instances of same- sex love have traditionally been marginalized in mainstream media, and is therefore likely to be reflected in the materials collected. In their profile, they mention that the focus lies on content that has importance on a national, historical and cultural level and that the institute plays a crucial role in “documenting and interpreting Dutch society and its history as recorded in audiovisual media.”43 Since people who experience same-sex attraction, and are non-binary or transgender make up more than 10% of this society, they should be represented in this interpretation, but because of this marginalization, they are underrepresented instead.44
41 In May of 2017, the Press Museum (Persmuseum) fused with NIBG because the Raad voor Cultuur (Board of Culture) no longer saw the need to finance a separate museum for printed press. This collection consists of newspapers, magazines, cartoons, and ads and is housed and managed by the International Institute of Social History (IISG) in Amsterdam. 42 Collection Policy Sound and Vision, ed. Mieke Lauwers, trans. Beth Delaney (Hilversum: Beeld en Geluid, 2013). 43 Ibid. 44 Research into the demographic statistics shows the difficulty of pinning down a specific number since there is significant sexual diversity. 6% of women and 7% of men in the Netherlands identify as either gay or bisexual,
15 This underrepresentation may also be a result of the fact that the initiatives of the institute do not cater to specific communities. Four general groups of users are identified in the collection policy instead, namely “media professionals and the creative industry, education and research, and the general public.”45 With regards to this lack of focus or seeking out material, media historian Bas Agterberg argues that NIBG is a passive collector of new materials, since they are rarely actively sought out. Donations are only accepted when these fit the collection policy NIBG enforces. It can, therefore, be concluded that collecting societally engaged media for interested communities is not on the agenda since collecting is done from a “historical perspective for research and re-use,” but they are open to accepting donations that feature these types of media.46 Examining the materials that reside within these archives introduces both positive and negative influences of harboring them within an archive that focuses on moving images. Kirste studied how queer audiovisual documents are stored and made available in different institutional types and found that there are several benefits to storing queer-related material in moving image archives, as opposed to archives that have mixed-media collections. For one, audiovisual archives usually have substantial holdings in which gender and sexual diversity are visible or discussed, whether their staff is aware of this or not.47 Second, they are more likely to have high-quality storage systems and equipment for viewing and repairing material, since moving images are their primary focus and other media are not competing for attention and finances. This focus on the audiovisual also results in the employment of a well-trained staff that knows how to handle these materials. Lastly, she observes a general emphasis on providing public access in moving image archives. The latter is especially true for NIBG since their holdings need to be accessible to the public television industry almost instantly. Furthermore, the institute is a prominent player in the cultural field in implementing audiovisual preservations standards, so these collections are preserved very well. This archive also has the means to systematically digitize their materials, although they were most likely chosen for other reasons than their queer content. However, Kirste also identifies several issues that play a problematic role in keeping queer materials at moving image archives. For example, while related content might be but 18% of women report being sexually attracted to the same sex, while 13% of men feel this way. About 1 in 250 people identify as transgender; See Keuzenkamp, Kooiman, and Lisdonk, Niet te ver uit de kast: Ervaringen van homo- en biseksuelen in Nederland (Den Haag: Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau, 2012), 11. 45 Collection Policy Sound and Vision, 42. 46 Bas Agterberg (Media History Expert at Institute for Sound and Vision) in discussion with the author, March 2017. 47 Kirste, “Collective Effort: Archiving LGBT Moving Images,” 137.
16 collected, this is usually not done with the goal to acquire materials that feature same-sex love or desire. Instead, they fall within collecting policies due to being documentaries or films of regional importance. As a national archive that focusses on television and radio, NIBG mostly has items from main-stream television in which same-sex love is a topic of discussion, as well as fictional series with queer characters, and interviews with self- identified gay or lesbian public figures. Additionally, moving images archives are typically not dedicated to queer issues, as is the case at NIBG, so the staff is not as knowledgeable on the issues and history of queer life as the staff at an LGBTIQ archive is. The lack of pre- existing knowledge affects both the quality of descriptions of queer items in the catalogue as well as decisions in prioritizing some materials over others. Questions of priority are rampant at audiovisual institutions, but since “many queer titles that are extremely significant to LGBT community are barely known outside this community (…) these productions are not likely to be preservation priorities.”48 This lack of knowledge and focus might, therefore, hinder the safekeeping of and access to these materials. Descriptive cataloging, in particular, is necessary to make queer holdings easy to find. Instances of same-sex love and desire are often not explicitly noted on, and unless these occurrences are tagged or described accordingly, discovering them in large databases is close to impossible. Identifying same-sex love and desire and including these in descriptions opens up the material for research into queer audiovisual materials. However, as Kirste argues,
detailed cataloging is time-consuming; determining appropriate subject headings, especially for obscure materials, can mean hours of viewing time and bring up questions about subjectivity, appropriate terminology, filmmakers’ self-identities, and other cataloging concerns. Since almost all moving image archives have backlogs and ongoing data cleanup projects, descriptive cataloging of materials relating to marginalised groups is frequently left off their agendas.49
The latter is partly accurate for NIBG, as it is an archive where one general public is presumed.50 Nevertheless, archivists at NIBG have implemented several strategies for in-depth descriptions. For example, some descriptions are done with the help of automated voice- recognition software, which turns speech into text and allows description down to time codes. This process provides a lot of metadata, but also means that only explicit mentions
48 Kirste, “Collective Effort: Archiving LGBT Moving Images,” 137. 49 Ibid. 50 Collection Policy Sound and Vision, 42.
17 of sexuality and gender are identified and described accordingly. The lack of identification of instances of same-sex love and desire results in researchers having to search for specific films or filmmakers, even though only a few people may have knowledge of related items. Especially student films, amateur documentation or home movies will be hard to find this way, even though these are precisely the productions of interest. The keyword system that NIBG uses works to partly correct this issue. The archivists that describe the materials have tied at least a part of NIBG’s holdings (it is unclear how much) to keywords that corroborate to specific themes or phenomena, and ‘homoseksualiteit’ (homosexuality) is one of these keywords. It only partly corrects this issue, though, since I have found that not all related material is tagged under ‘homoseksualiteit.’ In the following paragraph, I will provide further description and evaluation of how these keywords are implemented into the catalogue.
2.2 The Catalogue
The general public, researchers, and broadcasters usually access an archive through a catalogue or descriptive system. The workings and affordances of such systems influence what archival material is found and how easy or difficult it is to do so. It is, therefore, useful to introduce and reflect on the systems the archives discussed in this thesis use. I accessed the holdings of NIBG through the iMMix cataloguing system, which functions through a web portal and is accessible inside the building. Subsequently, this is how broadcasters, researchers and other stakeholders access NIBG’s collection. The catalogue holds a total of 5.868.648 individual items and broadcasts. Finding an item or transmission can be done through typing a title or description into a search field, which gives viewable options for all digitized materials, and text-descriptions for those that are not in the digital archive yet. Users can search generally, and further narrow the search to specific broadcasters, genres, decades or predetermined keywords. The keywords work to divide the collection according to themes, which significantly benefits accessibility to queer content. At least some of the clips relating to queer issues are tied to the keyword ‘homoseksualiteit’ (homosexuality), meaning these items have explicitly been tagged as relating to same-sex love or desire. There are also keywords for ‘homoseksuelen’ (homosexuals), ‘homo’s’ and ‘lesbiennes’ (lesbians), but these garner significantly fewer results. Being able to tag material as ‘queer’ or ‘homosexual’ is specific to an archive that is
18 not strictly tied to the government.51 Although the government partially funds NIBG, they are not considered a government-run archive, which means they have more freedom regarding the tagging of their material as queer than a municipal archive has, where strict rules apply due to laws for the protection of privacy.52 In the collection, this is visible in the fact that it is quite easy to access at least part of their LGBTIQ-related material through the tags. It is also an example of how policies or primary objectives of the archive influence descriptions and protocols. Other results of these policies and objects are a comprehensive indexing of the materials in the form of textual descriptions, due to NIBG’s focus on access. A decent amount of items is even described down to time codes with the help of the automated-voice system, which saves a lot of time searching for the specific parts of a broadcast in which same-sex love or desire is only a minor part and simplifies the research. This searching based on keywords is not possible through their usual web portal though, and can only be accessed within the building, limiting general access. There are two other issues with the tags, the first one being that ‘homosexuality’ might now be deemed an offensive term and that not all material in which same-sex love or desire is visible is specifically tagged as such. For example, the staff of IHLIA, dedicated to LGBTIQ representation, has noted that they have knowledge of material that is of importance to LGBTIQ communities that is hard to find in the catalogue of this non-dedicated archive.53 Further research on this issue and finding solutions are critical.
2.3 The Collection
Instances of same-sex love and desire are underrepresented in the items available at NIBG. Searching for keywords including ‘homoseksualiteit/homosexualiteit,’ ‘lesbienne(s),’ and ‘seksualiteit’ (sexuality) revealed 5225 items that explicitly deal with the topic in NIBG’s collection, which is about 0,09 % of all items available. The British National Archives provides a research guide with search terms such as tribade, sodomy, and perversion, since ‘homosexuality’ is relatively new, but searching for the Dutch translations of these delivered either none or useless results. The same was true for the Dutch terms mentioned in the
51 Lonneke van den Hoonaard (director of IHLIA) in discussion with the author, May 2017. 52 Ibid.; Paul de Jong (Jonge Historici) in discussion with the author, May 2017. 53 Jasper Wiedeman (audiovisual specialist at IHLIA) in discussion with the author, July 2017.
19 Queering the Collections guide, such as ‘Kwee,’ ‘Uranisme,’ or ‘Sodomie(t).’54 For these reasons, I concentrated on the easy to find material, and extended my search from there into areas known for queer activity such as clips of scouting, prisons, boarding schools and content made by or featuring queer public figures, but focused on material in which gender or sexual diversity was more explicit.55 I explored the results by decade, identifying overarching themes and tendencies in the representation of same-sex love and queer expressions. Explicit mentions of homosexuality start to appear on television in the 1960s, although only marginally; there are 24 fragments for this decade. It makes sense that this would be the starting point, as it was viewed as a perversion that needed to remain hidden before this time. This concealment is explicitly stated in many of the items from later decades. Numerous queer people comment on the fact that homosexuality existed and that they lived fulfilling lives, but that their sexuality was not something that could be discussed or was even acknowledged outside of queer circles.56 This invisibility is also reflected in NIBG’s material by a lack of results before 1964. As a consequence, these kinds of mainstream archives give the idea that queer histories do not start until the second half of the twentieth century, even though this is not the case.57 Even in film, queer cinema can be traced all the way back to some of the first films. For example, the 1895 Edison short The Gay Brothers featured two men dancing, and was thought to subvert conventional male behavior.58 Dutch historians of sexuality link the beginning of visibility in the sixties to the fact that people started to see it as something other than just a means for reproduction. This new mindset opened up new understandings of sexuality since it was no longer something that would only be of use in marriages between men and women.59 Benno Premsela, the head of
54 Riemer Knoop and Lonneke van den Hoonaard, eds, Queering the Collections: Tips & tricks voor het nog zichtbaarder maken van gender- & seksuele diversiteit in musea en collecties (Hardinxveld-Giessendam: Tuijtel, 2016). 55 What these spaces have in common is that they were typically sex-segregated. Sexuality is questioned in these kinds of cases because queer activity in these situations can also be ascribed to ‘situational sexual behavior,’ meaning heterosexuals are engaging in same-sex relationships because of the lack of alternatives. Since I am not specifically looking for a fixed queer experience, these instances of same-sex love or desire can still be relevant; Margeret Rosario, Eric Schrimshaw, Joyce Hunter, and Lisa Braun, “Sexual Identity Development Among Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youths: Consistency and Change Over Time,” Journal of Sex Research 43, no. 1 (February 2006): 46–58. 56 Annemarie Mol and Peter van Lieshout, Ziek is het woord niet: Medicalisering, normalisering en de veranderende taal van huisartsengeneeskunde en geestelijke gezondheidszorg, 1945-1985 (Amsterdam University Press: Amsterdam, 2008). 57 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites, 3. 58 While there is little evidence that the film was intended to be read as queer, film historian Vito Russo has argued that the clip is an early example of same-sex imagery in cinema because it exposes a same-sex intimacy that creates the possibility of the men being gay. See Vito Russo, The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies (New York: HarperCollins, 1987). 59 Mol and Van Lieshout, Ziek is het woord niet.
20 LGBT-rights organization COC, marks the start of the fight for visibility in one of the first audiovisual fragments dealing with same-sex love and desire, broadcast in 1964.60 For the first time, a self-identified gay man dared to be positive about his sexuality on television while recognizably showing his face. In the clip, he proclaims that gay people “think the time has come, although we have been ‘coming out’ for a long time, that we can come out even more (…) Homosexuals deserve their own spot, have a right to their own spot (in society).”61 However, a definite ambivalence towards homosexuality is still visible in these early stages. The people discussing homosexuality are often medical practitioners trying to explain the ‘disorder,’ even when they are arguing for acceptance of homosexuality. The play “Geen Gewone Jongen” (Not a regular boy), televised in 1965, exemplifies this stance.62 It shows a typical boy growing into adulthood, trying to detach himself from an overbearing mother. To his mother’s discontent, he starts to spend a lot of time with his language teacher, a new friend who helps him through this process. While the boy only implies his possible homosexuality, his language teacher comes out to him as gay in an undramatic fashion. Between acts, a psychologist provides commentary on the characters’ emotional states, as well as educative information on sexuality. She states that it is a mental disorder caused by specific circumstances, but that homosexuals are regular people that are not at fault for their sexual orientation. Thus, the ambivalence lies in the fact that, while the play portrays a gay man as an unproblematic, loving figure who can live a happy life, the commentary provided classifies him as disordered. In general, broadcasters present homosexuality as a problem that needs further study to provide answers and solutions. In the late sixties and into the early seventies, the results of such studies are an important theme among the 65 results for the decade, and these concluded that gay men and lesbians were having a hard a time participating in society and their working lives. Many clips deal with the formation of different advocacy groups interested in educating the public about homosexuality and the issues non-normative people were facing. In television, this meant the topic was most often a theme on current affairs programming and talk shows, where both queers and straights were given a platform to talk about (their issues with) sexuality. Throughout the sixties, seventies, and eighties, it is also repeatedly a theme in programs about taboos, current affairs or otherwise challenging topics.
60 COC stands for Cultuur en Ontspanningscentrum (Culture and Relaxation center), a vague description that was used to cover up their real purpose of furthering LGBT-rights. The organization quickly became one of the leading forces in combatting inequality based on sexual orientation. 61 Achter Het Nieuws. VARA, December 12, 1964. The Institute of Sound and Vision. 62 Vrouwenprogramma (collective name given by the Institute of Sound and Vision). “Geen Gewone Jongen.” AVRO, March 11, 1965. Institute of Sound and Vision.
21 Arguably for these reasons, normalizing gay and lesbian people by assimilating homosexuality into the every day became a key strategy among activists and allies. However, queer voices are frequently featured in opposition to ‘normal’ people, reflecting a heteronormative stance. Sometimes this opposition can be beneficial, for example when these ‘normal’ people express stereotypical positions, and queer people can publicly dispute these ideas. However, the opposite is often true, especially when the interviewer or presenter expresses heteronormative, problematic views. An example of this is an episode of Televizier Magazine, broadcasted in 1978. An interviewer asks Janis Hetherington, a lesbian mother, what she would think of her daughter being with a man, heavily implying heterosexuality would be an issue to her. Alternatively, this attitude is representative of a specific queer experience, namely Janis Hetherington’s, and she gives a strong statement on what it is like to be a queer parent at this time when she says; “I think lesbians and homosexuals make excellent parents. We care, you know. And it means a hell of a lot to care. A lot of people can bring up children and appear to care. We’ve got to care. We’ve got the rest of society against us; we need to.”63 The fact that ‘the rest of society is against us’ becomes clear from the discriminatory practices of both state and church that are on display in (news)items around this time. Towards the end of the decade the focus, therefore, shifts to protesters who acted in response to this discrimination. News of increasing violence towards gay and lesbian people accompanies this increase in protests and carries on into the eighties. However, in 311 items, the focus shifts from these protests and fights for equality to the fight against AIDS, but not until the knowledge that heterosexuals can also get the disease becomes widespread. Non-traditional families and parenting by gay and lesbian people becomes an important topic as well, with a lot of items in which multiple parties evaluate whether or not they should even be allowed to be parents. Seemingly in contradiction, multiple media sources start proclaiming a general acceptance of homosexuality in the Netherlands towards the end of the eighties. Documentary footage of self-identified gay public figures, in which they discuss their sexuality, also starts to become more prevalent during this decade.64 Homosexuality becomes less of a current affairs issue, but the focus remains on issues nonetheless. For example, there are many items like Kijk haar (Look at her) and Amersfoort ongehoord (Amersfoort unheard), both from the early eighties, in which teachers reveal that their employers fired
63 Televizier Magazine. Season 9, Episode 15. AVRO, January 21, 1978. Institute of Sound and Vision. 64 Hayward uses the concept of queeroes to describe these ‘LGBTIQ’ historical ‘heroes,’ “who are regularly, and often uncritically, represented in public histories”; Hayward, “Representations of Same-Sex Love in Public History,” 11.
22 them because of their homosexuality.65 This representation of same-sex love as consistently problematic for everyone involved is explicitly noted on by actor and comedian Paul Haenen during this time. He wrote a play to criticize television programs for doing this, noting that gay people only get a seat at the table to add a sense of current issues to programs. In his words, “gays on television are only invited when there is a lack of problems. In normal shows, even from the progressive broadcasters, they’re invisible.”66 He subverts this experience by portraying a gay couple and their relationship as healthy and loving, while the heterosexual people in the play are all miserable. In the early nineties, a definite increase in items that focus on famous gay men is visible. A sudden and temporary more sexualized view of homosexuality through a focus on gay and lesbian nightlife and in particular more promiscuous lifestyles is also noticeable, arguably in response to the image of gay men as especially promiscuous, that the media created during the AIDS epidemic. There seems to be a proliferation of representations of same-sex love and desire in general, since the number of material triples for this decade, with about 905 items in the collections for the 1990s. From the start, there are many celebratory accounts of a much-improved acceptance of homosexuality and the Netherlands is portrayed as a leading example of emancipation. Discrimination is still noted on, but often in relation to sports and religion, two areas where silencing or discriminatory practices remain strongest. The impact of the perceived tolerance is palpable in many items, including Deugd de Jeugd? (How is the youths’ virtue?) from 1992. In this particular program, an interviewer provides his views on Roze Maandag (Pink Monday). He starts off by asking a crossdresser why he feels the need to attend the event “dressed like ‘that’” and storms up to a protester, aggressively questioning the man on why he feels the need to protest when “everything is already allowed and tolerated” in the Netherlands. 67 Paradoxically, the message that it is strange that “precisely this event” starts with a church-service shortly follows, making it clear that these kinds of religious settings do not accept homosexuality. This stance is also reinforced in items like Hier en Nu Praatradio (Here and Now Talking Radio) in 1996, when the COC celebrated its 50th anniversary and one of the questions was whether the continued existence of such an institution was even necessary.68 The COC had been aiming for equal
65 Amersfoort Ongehoord. Directed by Rob de Vries. Gemeentearchief Rotterdam, June 26, 1982. Institute for Sound and Vision; Kijk Haar. VARA, March 4, 1982. The Institute of Sound and Vision. 66 Charles Leeuwenkap and Bernard Neuheus. “Bemoeizucht/Ik laat mij niet belazeren.” Kwartslag. October 1, 1984. 67 Deugd de Jeugd?, “Afl. 3: Roze Zaterdag”, Episode 3, Directed by Willen Reiger, IKON, November 4, 1992. Institute of Sound and Vision. 68 Hier en nu praatradio, NCRV, 23 September 1996, Radio broadcast, Institute of Sound and Vision.
23 access to heterosexual rights, so it is a troubling question to pose when it would be another five years until their campaigns for legalizing gay marriage would achieve their goal. Attention during this time also shifts to how gay men and lesbians are experiencing discrimination in other parts of the world, further bringing attention to an image of the Netherlands as especially progressive and liberal. In her BA thesis, Ellen Schuurman argues that homosexuality became more prominent in entertainment and commercial broadcasts as well in this decade. Examples include sitcom In De Vlaamsche Pot (In the Flemish Pan), which featured two gay male protagonists, and soap operas as Onderweg maar Morgen (Until Tomorrow) and Goede Tijden, Slechte Tijden (Good Times, Bad Times). Unfortunately, while enhancing visibility, these also reinforced certain stereotypes such as gay men as either ultra-feminine, flamboyant, and promiscuous or ashamed of their sexuality. Alternatively, programs often showed gay men and lesbians as void of sexual desire, to appease an overwhelmingly straight viewership and enforce a sense of ‘decency,’ even though sexual activity between unmarried heterosexual couples in television shows was not seen as an issue.69 What I have previously described as homonormativity is solidified through these representations because same-sex love and desire is only allowed to be present in fictional tv around this time when they do not challenge heteronormative standards. As communication scholars Frejes and Petrich reiterate, “mainstream television does not present gays and lesbians in the context of their own identity, desire, community, culture, history or concerts, but rather as woven into the dominant heterosexual metanarrative.”70 In spite of this insertion into heterosexual frameworks, problems have not disappeared, and are mentioned especially in broadcasts with relation to the discrimination Islamic people face and how homosexuality is still of concern in education, for example in Christian schools, where teachers were still allowed to be fired based on their sexual orientation. Items focusing on issues for gay men and lesbians continue in the 2000s, but the legalization of gay marriage and the first marriage of a gay couple being televised also solidified the image of the achievement of full acceptance of homosexuality in the Netherlands, and many discussions around this time question the need for further activism. Exposing existing prejudice and the fact that tolerance is not the same as acceptance or celebration of difference becomes a dominant theme for LGBT-advocacy groups and
69 Schuurman, “Between Tolerance and Acceptance: Homosexuality on Television in the Netherlands,” 13. 70 Fred Fejes and Kevin Petrich, “Invisibility, Homophobia, and Heterosexism: Lesbians, Gays and the Media,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 10, no. 4 (1993): 402.
24 activists, who are often met with resistance. The material from this point until the present day is very varied, and the remaining 2137 items range from thematic episodes on discrimination, and condemnation of homosexuality in Islam, in documentary and talk-shows, to news items about events such as Roze Maandag and Gay Pride, items on discriminatory practices that are met with protests or lawsuits, interviews with gay and lesbian public figures, and transgender people slowly starting to become less invisible. In more recent years, especially from 2016 onwards, representations of identities that do not fall into neat categories and dismantle binary ideas of sexuality and gender increase. These shows and documentaries bring new forms of gender-expression and fluid sexuality into the mainstream, such as in BNN documentary Genderbende (Gendermess), in which people who do not identify as either man or woman discuss gender fluidity and dismantle the rigid distinctions we have developed as a society.71 I return to discuss the significance of these shifts in chapter 5.
2.4 The Museum and Current Exhibitions
NIBG is not just the national audiovisual archive, but also a museum of media (history), and as such features a permanent exhibition known as ‘The Experience.’ Although this attracts a broad audience, it is mostly geared towards children and their parents. Before walking around, the visitor receives a ring and has to choose a presenter that serves as a tour guide for the exhibition. When doing this, you are asked to fill out your name, age, and gender, which only has binary male and female options. Sexuality and gender are explicitly mentioned in other parts of the experience, too. For instance, there is a small display on ‘how media teaches us about sexuality,’ but unfortunately reinforces heteronormativity through a focus on ‘traditional’ family constructs with a mum and dad. This display also shows a video that is condescending towards having children outside of a relationship between men and women. In the clip, having children through insemination is discussed, and the words ‘men not included’ flash over the image. While not purposefully homophobic, choosing to display how media represents sexuality through clips like these, without contextualizing them, is in conflict with inclusive practices. This lack of historical context is also evident in the part of The Experience that focuses on ‘media and power.’ In a segment that discusses different groups of activists, ‘the flamboyant gays of Amsterdam’ are casually mentioned and illustrated by images of men wearing leather on a Gay Pride float. While contextualizing the collection in
71 3DOC. “Genderbende”. BNN, May 30, 2017. Directed by Sophie Dros and produced by Olivia Sophie van Leeuwen and Sander van den Eeden.
25 ways that display the power of representation in (queer) activism is commendable, relying on stereotypical language and images to do so is not ideal. NIBG’s curators are working on a complete renewal of The Experience, which will focus more on news and news coverage to include the recent take-over of the printed press materials. Hopefully, this new experience will be more reflective of a broad range of identities and stories and provide historical context on how public broadcasts frame non- conforming identities. However, this is unlikely since this would only happen if the media did so too. Relying on alternative, queer media sources would enhance such presentations as it would allow them to show different narratives than those already mainstream. I would argue showing these alternatives is even necessary, because, as I have discussed in the introduction to this thesis, representation in museums and archives plays a role in accelerating and improving social inclusion for minority groups and the individuals within these groups as well. In a country where the people have chosen ‘genderneutraal’ (genderneutral) as the most annoying word for 2017, in spite of how accepting the Netherlands is portrayed to be, the fight against hetero-and homonormativity remains a principal task.72 In 2017, the museum also presented two temporary exhibitions in which they provided varying views on their collection and media in general. In the following paragraphs, I will analyze how these were used by the institute to connect to the present and in what ways curators could have used them to queer the collection. First, a small but fascinating exhibition entitled New Media: New Stories from the Archive allowed artists to engage with the items available in the archive and re-use these for their works, and some of the resulting artworks were displayed on-site. These artworks not only combined art and archival images, but they also linked historical and contemporary views, as well as allowed for commentary on contextualization and the moving image as (collective) memory. This was promising since queer artists could have engaged with and integrated seamlessly into the exhibition without drawing specific attention to diverse sexual or gender identities, but this was not perceptible in the displayed works. As archival theorist Ann Cvetkovich argues, representing history, and more specifically one rooted in trauma, “can benefit from the help of artists and other creative archivists, rather than being left to the
72 Gender neutral received 43% of the votes for ‘most irritating word of 2017’, see “Weg met dat woord! 2017: Weg met ‘Genderneutraal’ en ‘ik heb zoiets van’,” Instituut voor de Nederlandse Taal, 7 December, 2017, http://www.inl.nl/images/stories/over_ons/voor_de_pers/20171207_persbericht_wmdw2017_uitslag.html.
26 scholars and the museums and the libraries.”73 Regularly featuring artists’ interventions is identified by museologist Richard Sandell as one form of “playfully and poetically” queering a collection, a means by which artists can deconstruct notions around the every day and normalization of gender and sexuality and pose uncomfortable questions to audiences.74 By allowing (queer) artists to engage with the materials, one could imagine works that integrate problematic ephemera from the archive and engage with them in a way that unveils their heteronormativity or their inherent or perceived queerness. New Media: New Stories from the Archive was a small, temporary exhibition though, and only featuring non-normative sexualities or gender identities this way can become tokenistic if these communities are not involved in sustainable ways and is not enough to be considered an inclusive solution. Let’s YouTube was the second, much larger temporary exhibition, and is another example of the institutes’ engagement to connecting media history to the present. It considered how YouTube functions within the media landscape. YouTube is a vital space for videos and stories of queer self-expression. Searching for ‘coming out’, for example, delivers an incredible 54.600.000 results on the platform. These videos could be of incomparable value for the future when it comes to archiving and representing sexual and gender diversity. Though there might be issues of performativity and institutionalisation of the platform, there is a lot to be said for YouTube as an archive of queer expression because of high levels of self-disclosure among its users, of intangible heritage through the recording of certain events or experiences, as well as a source of amateur material.75 The latter is especially valuable for representing minorities within a national archive because, as professor of Screen Studies Patricia Zimmerman argues, amateur films can operate as a deconstruction of the narrative of a national archive because of the more democratic nature of these films, and because it
allows us to reclaim the past as photographed by those not included in national cinemas or Hollywood, a form of cinematic reparation, although it does - in significant ways- function as a corrective to nationalised representational
73 Ann Cvetkovich, “Photographing Objects: Art as Queer Archival Practice,” in Lost and Found: Queerying the Archive, eds. Mathias Danbolt, Jane Rowley, and Louise Wolthers (Copenhagen: Nikolaj, Copenhagen Art Center, 2009), 49-65. 74 Knoop and Van den Hoonaard, eds, Queering the Collections: Tips & tricks, 17. 75 See Sonia Núñez Puente, Diana Fernández Romero and Rainer Rubira García, “Online Activism and Subject Construction of the Victim of Gender-based Violence on Spanish YouTube Channels: Multimodal Analysis and Performativity,” European Journal of Women’s Studies 22, no. 3 (2015): 319–333; Jin Kim, “The Institutionalization of YouTube: From User-generated Content to Professionally Generated Content,” Media, Culture & Society 34, no. 1 (2012): 53-67.
27 systems and nationalist ideologies of sameness.76
NIBG has collected about 7000 YouTube videos for a research pilot that has been underway since 2008 and stored them on hard disks. Because of questionable rights, they do not publish the materials for view or re-use, but only include a link to the original video in their catalogue. The idea behind this is to continue with their mission of providing a comprehensive representation of media history and heritage, of which YouTube has become an integral part. The rules and guidelines for selecting these materials are principally similar to those of the general collection, but selections are also made by “popularity, societal relevance, being exemplary of digital culture, quality, and creativity.”77 These guidelines have meant that lesser known, personal videos on sexuality and coming out are included, but barely, and bigger networks, vloggers, and viral videos are overrepresented instead. Hopefully collecting small-scale displays of (queer) self-expression will become part of this project as it grows, especially since, instead of the object-focused art museum, archives and museums that centre around media have the ability to present intangible heritage.78 YouTube is especially suitable to do this, Associate Professor of Social Communication Sheenagh Pietrobruno argues, because “YouTube as an archive of intangible heritage can circulate practices of the marginalized and challenge traditional performances of heritage.”79 She suggests that users have more agency since it is not an institutionalized central power that decides what is saved and displayed and what is not. We should, however, remain critical of YouTube as a neutral platform. Users’ agency in general is contested and, as Sheenagh reiterates, is still limited on YouTube since “Google has retained the right to remove any video whose content it deems inappropriate.”80 In March 2017, this ability to censor caused a great uproar when the site suddenly classified many LGTBIQ themed videos as restricted, as is visible in figure 1.81 This censored mode can be turned on by users and is geared towards parents, schools, and libraries to filter out content
76 Paula Zimmerman, “Morphing History Into Histories: From Amateur Film to the Archive of the Future," The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists 1, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 108-130. 77 Valentine Kuypers, “Webvideo’s archiveren bij Beeld en Geluid” (Sound and Vision, Hilversum: 2016), internal communication. 78 Sheenagh Pietrobruno, “YouTube and the Social Archiving of Intangible Heritage,” New Media & Society 15, no. 8 (2013): 1259 - 1276. 79 Pietrobruno, “YouTube and the Social Archiving of Intangible Heritage,” 1261. 80 Ibid.; For an exploration of user agency see David Mathieu, “Users’ Encounter with Normative Discourses on Facebook: A Three- Pronged Analysis of User Agency as Power Structure, Nexus, and Reception,” Social Media + Society 2, no. 4 (Oct-Dec 2016): 1–11. 81 Neonfiona (@neonfiona), “Just looked at my videos with the “restricted mode” on. Seeing a bit of a theme here… LGBT+ content not safe for kids @YouTube?”, Twitter post, 16 March, 2017, https://twitter.com/neon fiona/status/842390135257874432
28 YouTube has flagged as inappropriate. Insinuating that LGBTIQ themed videos are inappropriate is offensive at best, and sends the wrong message about what forms of self- expression are appropriate, and which are not. YouTube has since apologized for their mistake, and the restrictions have been lifted for some videos, but not for all.82 Some of these YouTube videos are in NIBG’s archives, such as those by the Gay-Straight Alliance Network. Their “Iedereen is anders” (Everyone is Different) video is a clip that gives notice of the hardships of non-normative identified people, while celebrating their differences, but even this display of sexual and gender diversity disappears when restricted mode is turned on. These kinds of silencing practices deserve critical reflection about the message it sends.
Fig 1. Example of Youtube restricting LGBTIQ themed content.
Furthermore, while the openness of the medium can be celebrated for offering a platform for previously silenced voices, this openness also invites negative comments. Because these spaces typically are anonymous and not policed, it is important to acknowledge that “digital-media venues contain more homophobia than mainstream media
82 See Elle Hunt, “LGBT Community Anger Over YouTube Restrictions Which Make Their Videos Invisible,” The Guardian, 20 March 2017, www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/20/lgbt-community-anger-over- youtube-restrictions-which-make-their-videos-invisible.
29 (books, television, newspapers) in terms of intensity and quantity.”83 However, this should not deter us from considering it worth the celebration, because “they also offer a unique platform in which gay people can respond to homophobic representations of their experiences and desires.”84 Therefore, despite some limitations, paying attention to and archiving online video for future expressions of queer experiences is still of importance to queer communities. As Alexander and Rhodes argue, platforms such as YouTube “serve an invaluable function in (1) making available to us a plethora of voices and views on a variety of queer topics and (2) facilitating the collection and narration of how individuals and groups might interpret, reinterpret, and revision queerness.”85 Although the sheer amount of material that is available through these channels is overwhelming, “we should not be daunted by the volume of ephemera, but rather seek more creative ways to interact with it.”86 For example, the topic could have been adopted into the YouTube exhibition at NIBG since it was partly about self- expression and identity.
83 Evan Mwangi, “Queer Agency in Kenya’s Digital Media,” African Studies Review 57, no. 2 (2014): 93. 84 Ibid. 85 Jonathan Alexander and Jacqueline Rhodes, “Queer Rhetoric and the Pleasures of the Archive,” Enculturation, last modified in 2012, http://enculturation.net/files/QueerRhetoric/queerarchive/Home.html. 86 Ibid.
30 3. THE INTERNATIONAL HOMO/LESBIAN INFORMATION ARCHIVE (IHLIA)
3.1 The Archive
The International Homo/Lesbian Information Center and Archive, now known as IHLIA, is the largest European archive that focusses on collecting, preserving and presenting materials that are “in any way relevant to LGBTIQ life.”87 It was founded in 1999 and was established through a merger of multiple (independent) archives, specifically the Homodok from the University of Amsterdam, and the Lesbian Archives of Amsterdam and Leeuwarden. While it started as an amateur endeavor, it quickly professionalized, and connections to academic and cultural networks that would help sustain the organization were sought out, such as with the University of Amsterdam, the International Institute of Social History (IISH) and the Public Library of Amsterdam. The Public Library provides the organization with its space, and both the information center and archive are located here, freely accessible to the public. IHLIA is an archive dedicated to archiving LGBTIQ history, lived experience and culture, and as such features all kinds of records. While it is a mostly paper-based archive of books, journals, documents, and posters, audiovisual items are relatively abundant and well preserved. Their collection holds 113.404 individual items, which translates to about 314 meters. A counter on IHLIA’s website shows that 14.618 of those items are categorized as ‘imagery,’ which is about 10% of their total holdings.88 However, photographs make up more than half of those numbers.89 The audiovisual media are stored in climate-controlled vaults in the public library. While they have some celluloid material, most of it has been copied to DVD and VHS, and as such can be viewed at the library upon request. However, both of these carriers and their apparatuses are known preservation risks, for which they are still looking for long-term solutions.90 Director Lonneke van den Hoonaard divides the users that consult the archive into six groups. Stakeholders can be classified as 1) policymakers looking for ways to write more inclusive policies for their organizations, 2) the LGBTIQ-movement and allies, 3) people with a media background, 4) internal users, 5) the general public and 6) academics who use
87 Jack van der Wel, “IHLIA - Making Information on LGBTIQ Issues in the Past and the Present Accessible and Visible,” in Serving LGBTIQ Library and Archives Users: Essays on Outreach, Service, Collections and Access, ed. Ellen Greenblatt (Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2011), 158. 88 “Over de collectie,” IHLIA LGBT Heritage, accessed May 22, 2017, http://www.ihlia.nl/collectie/collectie- van-ihlia/. 89 Jasper Wiedeman (audiovisual specialist at IHLIA) in discussion with the author, July 2017. 90 Ibid.
31 the collection for research purposes.91 User groups differ slightly for the audiovisual collection, since artists, journalists, and documentary makers are more predominant users of these media instead of researchers. IHLIA’s audiovisual specialist Jasper Wiedeman asserts that academics seem to use the audiovisual materials more for contextual information than as valuable historical documents in their own right.92 The details on IHLIA’s website describing the organization’s history make it clear that LGBTIQ archives and information centers like themselves not only safeguard and give access to the history of ‘others,’ but that they are also part of the gay- and lesbian movement.93 This is also reiterated on the organization’s ‘about the archive’ page, where it is noted that an “indispensable part of the IHLIA-collection consists of the archives of people and organizations that play or played an important part in the fight for the emancipation of gay men and lesbians.”94 In her research on LGBT moving image materials, Kirste found that, in general, LGBT archives often came into existence because of the work of queer people who wanted to make sure their cultural heritage would not be “ignored, misrepresented, censored, lost, and destroyed.”95 The history of IHLIA follows a similar narrative. Students and activists affiliated with the University of Amsterdam demanded the possibility of gay and lesbian research and therefore started collecting books on the subject, to fill a gap in the University’s curriculum and library holdings.96 Aside from archiving and presenting LGBTIQ history and heritage, IHLIA is engaged in various projects to further emancipation and acceptance of the communities they cater to. One way they aim to do this is through initiating projects like ‘Queering the Collections’, in which they encourage archives, museums and other institutions to become more inclusive of gender and sexual diversity. It is these kinds of practices that most align with their ‘archivists as activists’ goals. This tie to Dutch LGBT-movements has consequences for the material that is collected and displayed. As historian Christina Hanhardt writes,
LGBT community-based archives emerged out of social movements. One result has been that collecting and processing tendencies reflect the dominant parameters of that movement, not only in demographic but also in ideological terms. As might be self-evident, they tend to collect the materials of organizations founded
91 Lonneke van den Hoonaard (director of IHLIA) in discussion with the author, May 2017. 92 Jasper Wiedeman (audiovisual specialist at IHLIA) in discussion with the author, July 2017. 93 “Geschiedenis van IHLIA: Hoe het begon,” IHLIA LGBT Heritage, accessed May 14, 2017, http://www.ihlia.nl/informatiebalie/geschiedenis-van-ihlia2/. 94 “Over de collectie,” IHLIA LGBT Heritage, accessed May 22, 2017, http://www.ihlia.nl/collectie/collectie- van-ihlia/. 95 Kirste, “Collective Effort: Archiving LGBT Moving Images,” 135. 96 Van der Wel, “IHLIA,” 159.
32 in the name of LGBT individuals and so identified goals.97
As I have argued previously, LGBT activism in the Netherlands did not radicalize but depoliticized instead. The people at the front of these movements tended to be white, middle- class, gay men, and to a lesser degree, lesbians, which are therefore likely dominant groups in the archive’s holdings.98 Furthermore, the goals and aims of leading organizations like the COC were often homonormative, such as fighting for marriage equality, which some queer people do not define as particularly useful, since it voids them of their difference and assimilates queerness into heteronormative frameworks. Additionally, as Ferentinos argued, ‘LGBT’ typically referred to bisexual and transgender people only in name, and gay men and lesbians frequently fought for their rights more so than for bisexual and transgender communities.99 However, as Cvetkovich notes, the collection of the materials of these organizations
has by no means been static; archivists and others have worked hard to expand the terms of inclusion, to represent, albeit slowly, those individuals in the margins of a mainstream movement, most especially along race and gender lines.100
This work of inclusion is also visible in IHLIA’s practices, most significantly in terms of their exhibitions, that have for instance focused on women, transgender people, radical queers, and queer people of colour. I will return to the archive’s on-site practices in more detail in the concluding paragraph of this chapter. Even so, there are multiple benefits to centralizing audiovisual representations of queer experiences in LGBTIQ archives as supposed to mainstream ones. For one, items that relate to gender and sexual diversity are easy to find, since users and researchers can assume that all materials correlate to queer issues in one way or another. As Kirste found in American LGBT-archives, the staff is usually more knowledgeable about these issues and dedicated to the archive’s cause, as it is often their history they feel they are safeguarding. Furthermore, Kirste argues that these organizations are more likely to receive valuable donations in the form of personal collections since they have usually worked intensively with the communities they are catering to. These communities, therefore, perceive them as safe spaces to store these
97 Christina B. Hanhardt et al., “Queering Archives: A Roundtable Discussion,” Radical History Review 122 (May 2015): 223. 98 Bonnie Morris, “History of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Social Movements,” American Psychological Association, accessed October 31, 2017, http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/history.aspx. 99 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites, 6. 100 Ann Cvetkovich, An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality and Lesbian Public Cultures (Durham: Duke UP, 2003), 222.
33 kinds of collections. This is arguably true for IHLIA, since the archive receives a steady stream of donations.101 Taking in personal contents also means that academics such as Ann Cvetkovich describe LGBT archives as more closely connected to intimate histories than a national or municipal institution, which may lack community ties. IHLIA’s main aims and policies reflect these specific values. As a community-based archive, Van den Hoonaard stresses that providing access is of utmost importance because the organization is the entry-way for LGBTQ-people to access their own histories.102 An approach that speaks more to the emotional or affective nature of archival documents is also visible in their collection policies. An example of this includes the ‘about the collection’ page, where it is remarked that IHLIA’s archivists find it extremely important to collect personal stories “from and about the LGBT-community,” so they “can not only be read, seen and heard by current, but also future generations.”103 There is, for instance, a project in which trained volunteers collect life-stories of ‘ordinary’ queers. Additionally, I have found that oral history projects are often carried out for IHLIA’s exhibitions, further centering the stories and experiences of individuals. It might, therefore, be argued that materials at LGBT archives are especially suitable for queer representation. As discussed in chapter 2.3, NIBG’s collection provides material that is mainly about LGBTIQ-issues more so than representative of queer experience. As Hayward argues in her dissertation, “LGBTQ community archives seek to redress this imbalance by collecting and preserving the histories of LGBTQ people themselves, their personal memories, their experiences, and their histories.”104 She continues, “in contrast to mainstream archives, community archives highlight that personal documents and objects are worthy of preservation because of the emotional histories they represent.”105 In An Archive of Feelings, scholar Ann Cvetkovich corroborates this experience of LGBT archives, noting how the “emotional need for archives” is kept at the forefront of grassroots and community-based archives, more so than at traditional archives.”106 Both the statements on the ‘about the archive’, ‘about the collection’ and of IHLIA’s director mirror these sentiments. Nevertheless, there are a few drawbacks to centralizing queer archival media in LGBT archives. As Kirste asserts, community-based archives usually struggle with “small budgets,
101 Jasper Wiedeman (audiovisual specialist at IHLIA) in discussion with the author, July 2017. 102 Lonneke van den Hoonaard (director of IHLIA) in discussion with the author, May 2017. 103 “Over de collectie,” IHLIA LGBT Heritage, accessed May 22, 2017, http://www.ihlia.nl/collectie/collectie- van-ihlia/. 104 Hayward, “Representations of Same-Sex Love in Public History,” 70. 105 Ibid., 71. 106 Cvetkovich, An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality and Lesbian Public, 250.
34 few resources, cramped quarters, and little or no paid staff.”107 As a result, “dedicated volunteers usually do the bulk of material processing and cataloguing.”108 IHLIA also partly relies on the work of volunteers, which might be a risk since they are “very probably not trained in moving image archiving, thus easily overlooking singular items or in those in desperate need for preservation.”109 However, the organization also receive some funding from the government and employs a small part-time staff, including an AV-specialist, who can correct this issue.110 Furthermore, a lack of resources has also meant that collecting amateur video and home-movies is not on the agenda, even though these are usually an extensive part of LGBTIQ archiving. As I have argued throughout this thesis, amateur productions and home videos are particularly useful to challenge dominant discourses and provide insights into individuals’ lived experiences, so a lack of focus on these kinds of materials seems to contradict statements about an emphasis on collecting personal stories. Lastly, it is a specific audience that targets these collections, and a broad, general public may miss out on these histories since they think it is not meant for them. However, these disadvantages have led to creative solutions. For example, the archivists apply what they call ‘signaling,’ which refers to a section of the catalogue that they reserve for linking to audiovisual material they know exists and want to include in their collection, but which they do not currently have the means or rights to acquire. An employee will then find the item in, for example, NIBG’s collection and include detailed descriptions of these items to fill in the gaps, and link to these items on NIBG’s servers. However, linking to external content is a risky solution. The links may change over time and could render them all useless if the national institute reorganizes them. Another strategy is the ‘do-it-yourself’ attitude, that is also visible in the audiovisual collection. There are, for instance, self-made compilations and videotapes of related material. The head curator ensured the preservation of some of these compilations himself by scouring TV-guides for clues of gay or lesbian content and videotaping these representations of same-sex love and desire on television for years.111 Additionally, some items in the collection were recorded, bought or videotaped by the staff themselves.
107 Kirste, “Collective Effort: Archiving LGBT Moving Images,” 135. 108 Ibid. 109 Ibid. 110 Lonneke van den Hoonaard (director of IHLIA) in discussion with the author, May 2017. 111 Jasper Wiedeman (audiovisual specialist at IHLIA) in discussion with the author, July 2017.
35 3.2 The Catalogue
Small budgets also influence the cataloguing system an archive can use, but not necessarily the quality of descriptions. For instance, IHLIA works with a free and somewhat outdated cataloguing system. However, in regard to describing the materials, IHLIA’s audiovisual specialist Jasper Wiedeman notes that the archive prefers quality over quantity, meaning the archivists apply what he calls ‘in-depth description.’ He describes this to be a different approach than that at an institute like NIBG, because, in contrast to the national institute, archivists at IHLIA identify the different sexual and gender diverse themes that individual items address. This approach does have as a consequence that description is even more time- intensive than at a mainstream archive, since the material needs to be viewed from start to finish.112 Because they are mostly dependent on a small part-time staff and volunteers for cataloguing, there are serious backlogs, but this is the case for almost any archive. IHLIA’s archivists use keywords or tags, like NIBG, to enhance the quality of catalogue-entries. Because this is an LGBTIQ-archive, all items have relations to gender or sexual diversity, so tagging can be more detailed. The staff is also knowledgeable on issues that concert the depictions of same-sex love and desire, so they can more adeptly tag their materials, for example by identifying heterosexism or homophobic statements. During my research, I noticed that this identification is not only done when homophobia is a topic but also when the content itself is homophobic. The tags therefore serve as a sort of ‘trigger warning’ before viewing. Greater awareness of queer culture is also reflected in their terminology. For instance, the most used tags are ‘homo mannen’ (gay men) or ‘lesbische vrouwen’ (lesbians), instead of a unifying ‘homosexuality’ tag that some might experience as offensive due to medical connotations because the term was listed as a mental disorder for decades.113 This differentiation also ensures that a more diverse grouping is possible instead of suggesting that all material relating to ‘homosexuality’ is of relevance to all queer people. However, the tags are not always sufficient and at times detrimental, such as when items are tagged as ‘lesbian’ but in fact feature bisexual women, or the fact that racism is often not noted on, for example in the description of Black Emanuelle.114 In general, I found the depth and style of descriptions to vary. There seems to be a lack of standardization; some descriptions are very informal and subjective, such as the description
112 Jasper Wiedeman (audiovisual specialist at IHLIA) in discussion with the author, July 2017. 113 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites, 6. 114 “Black Emanuelle = Emanuelle Nera,” IHLIA LGBT Heritage, accessed June 4, 2017, http://www.ihlia.nl/ search/?q:search=ID:V57346&lang=en.
36 of the documentary Allemaal Lesbisch (Everybody’s a lesbian).115 To quote; “Kwaliteitsdocumentaire over het leven van een aantal lesbische vrouwen anno 2011. Met als klein minpuntje dat stereotypen ietwat angstvallig vermeden worden; de geportretteerden zijn allemaal opmerkelijk vrouwelijk,” (Quality documentary about the lives of several lesbians around 2011. With, as a small deficit, the fact that stereotypes are treated somewhat fearfully; the portrayed are all remarkably feminine).116 These subjective descriptions concur with Cvetkovich’s idea of a queer archive in the sense that not only the artifacts but the emotion- based feelings that we have when we experience these objects should be archived.117 In contrast, other entries simply describe a film’s plot. Furthermore, in regard to access, IHLIA is an international organization, meaning they do not just focus on Dutch LGBT heritage. This is tangible in their holdings, since a lot of the material is from other parts of Europe or the United States. However, most of the descriptions are in Dutch, limiting access for non-Dutch speakers. Accessibility to their audiovisual collection is also negatively influenced by their search system, which proves difficult to use unless the user is looking for a specific item. The catalogue is accessible through IHLIA’s website, which is how any interested party accesses the holdings of the archive and can request items to view. Search-ability is limited in the sense that it is not possible to create an overview of all items because the user has to enter a search term, instead of having the ability to browse through all items in the catalogue. Furthermore, results for search entries are organized alphabetically, and it is difficult or even impossible to reorganize and filter to cater to specific research questions. For example, searching for ‘lesbische vrouwen’ (lesbians), delivers 2253 results, but only two of them can be organized according to release date, arguably because the release dates in the catalogue have not been tied to the online portal yet. This filtering can be done in the internal catalogue, but that system is not accessible to anyone who does not work for IHLIA. Getting access to the cataloguing system instead of the online entry-point proved difficult for me as a researcher too, since they, unlike NIBG, have little space or the logistics to allow researchers unlimited entry. Viewing the material is therefore also more difficult since single items have to be chosen and viewed on-site, instead of the NIBG system of being able to preview most items while browsing. Furthermore, the metadata does not always provide all relevant contextual
115 Allemaal Lesbisch, directed by Mildred Roethof (2011; Amsterdam: Cinemien, 2012), DVD. 116 “Allemaal Lesbisch,” IHLIA LGBT Heritage, accessed May 28, 2017, http://www.ihlia.nl/search/?q:search= ID:V63141&lang=nl. 117 Cvetkovich, An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality and Lesbian Public, 269.
37 information. For example, the description will mention which series the item was part of, but not which channel broadcasted it or the exact date on which it was, only the year of broadcast. These are significant contextual facts that are useful for developing the right framework with which to view the contents.
3.3 The Collection
A broad interpretation of what qualifies as queer moving image materials is perceptible in IHLIA’s collection. As I have described in the introduction to this thesis, audiovisual materials can be queer because of their content, makers, or viewership. IHLA has diverse holdings that speak to all of these aspects. Kirste found that, in the United states, most LGBT-archives “hold some moving image materials, usually home movies, amateur documentation of queer organizations and events, cable access television shows, homemade compilations of clips from TV programs with queer content, and/or VHS tapes and DVDs of television shows and theatrical films.”118 In the following paragraphs, I explore how these different forms are found in IHLIA’s audiovisual holdings, and what queer experience they speak to. The broad interpretation of queer moving image materials is especially noticeable in the inclusion of feature films. While the focus lies on non-fiction, a large share of the audiovisual material exists in the form of fiction feature films, which are semi-actively collected by IHLIA’s staff.119 There is a definite difference between IHLIA and moving image archives in the sense that collecting original elements is not thought to be of importance; VHS or DVD copies are preserved and made available instead. To understand what can be qualified as queer cinema, film scholar Michele Aaron identifies three levels on which queer film theory engages with queer imagery. She argues it can be in the form of a “critical exploration of queer imagery and directors,” provide a “retrospective queering of film history,” or can be a “discussion of queer spectatorship.”120 These different levels of queer film theory’s engagement with audiovisual texts can also be traced in IHLIA’s holdings.
118 Kirste, “Collective Effort: Archiving LGBT Moving Images,” 135. 119 Jasper Wiedeman (audiovisual specialist at IHLIA) in discussion with the author, July 2017. 120 Michele Aaron, ed, New Queer Cinema: A Critical Reader (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004), 10.
38 This is visible in the selection of films where homosexuality is only implicitly represented and films that played a significant role in queer spectatorship but whose content is not necessarily queer. This can be said for films like All About Eve or films starring gay icon Greta Garbo.121 Greta Garbo, for example, played a big part in lesbian spectatorship, and her presence is also arguably a form queer representation because she is rumored to have had relationships with women, but she never played a lesbian in any of her films.122 All About Eve was released during the enforcement of the Production Code, and therefore homosexuality could not be explicit in cinema. It is latent, implicit forms that queer people read against the grain that were the instances of same-sex desire or love that LGBTQ people identified with during this time. The connection of these films to queer history is mostly manifested through the tags, for example with a film like Black Widow, which has ‘latent homosexuality’ as keywords.123 Although IHLIA’s archivists originally actively collected feature films that relate to LGBT communities, they stopped doing this in the early 2000s because LGBT issues entered the mainstream and were featured in so many films that it became impossible to collect them all.124 These DVDs and videos are also relatively easy to acquire, so their archiving within this organization is of less importance than, for example, one of a kind event registrations that would be lost without proper preservation. However, some films with latent homosexuality are described in problematic ways. Calamity Jane, for example, is included because it is part of the queer cinema canon.125 In the catalogue, Jane is described as a ‘lesbian cowgirl who was portrayed as straight’, thus implying an erasure of her sexual identity. However, research into her life makes clear that her sexuality is complex and clouded in mystery, as she was rumored to have married men, had children with them and has written in letters she was attracted to them.126 These kinds of historic figures make clear that we cannot simply use contemporary terms and apply them to a time and place where these categories did not yet exist, since this is just another form of erasing sexual diversity. Furthermore, the Calamity Jane film has a lot more to offer as an example of queer cinema, since it is an early example of representation of gender
121 All About Eve, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1950; Los Angeles, LA: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 1999), DVD. 122 Matthew Connolly, “Montgomery Clift: Queer Star,” The Velvet Light Trap - A Critical Journal of Film and Television 74 (Fall 2014): 90-92. 123 Black Widow, directed by Bob Rafelson (1987; Los Angeles, LA: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2004), DVD. 124 Jasper Wiedeman (audiovisual specialist at IHLIA) in discussion with the author, July 2017. 125 Calamity Jane, directed by David Butler (1953; Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 2003), DVD. 126 Calamity Jane, Copies of Calamity Jane’s Diary and Letters: Taken From the Originals Now On Exhibit At the Western Trails Museum, Billings, Montana (Billings, Mont.: Western Trails Museum, 1949).
39 nonconformity, which could have been identified in the description.127 The same can be said for a film like Black Emanuelle. In the film, the titular character sleeps with both men and women, yet the tags only identify ’lesbians’ and ‘sexuality’, erasing bisexuality. Collecting a broad range of materials is also visible in IHLIA’s television holdings. Like NIBG, the collection consists of a lot of current affair- and talk-shows, interviews and news items. However, the range of materials is broader than at NIBG, since episodes of programs that were on mainstream, commercial television have also been included. Holdings thus vary from episodes of ‘low-brow’ television like reality-tv shows and commercials, to programs from local, alternative, and queer news sources. Including commercials is especially interesting for research into material that shows how these dealt with important points of memory in LGBT history, such as the AIDS epidemic. For example, there is a copy of an ad that was meant to increase empathy among non-sufferers for people who were suffering from AIDS. Researchers might be especially interested in these kinds of materials. Examples of reality tv include a few episodes of a season of Big Brother that featured a lesbian participant, and as such all descriptions are written with a focus on this participant and her experiences. All You Need Is Love is another example where same-sex love is part of the program without drawing explicit attention to the participants’ sexualities. In both of these instances, their queerness is not a main focus or topic, and only seen as part of their identity. This is further exemplified in the inclusion of programs presented by gay or lesbian people, where sexuality is not discussed at all. At the same time, programs made by and for queer people are included, such as Lieve Jongens Allemaal (Jan Rot, 1995), in which coming- out stories and gay marriage are the subject. The inclusion of alternative media sources is especially significant. Between 1998 and 2010, a lot of material from MSV-TV, an LGBT radio and television station was acquired. Collecting material from these kinds of alternative, queer media sources is of importance, since they aim to eliminate prejudice not by normalizing LGBT people but by showing their diversity, and queers have control over their own representation.128 Documentaries make up another large portion of the audiovisual holdings, and are arguably also essential sources for queer representation. Although they are all listed under the same ‘documentary’ genre, they actually range from television episodes of Andere Tijden (Other Times), to feature films that were released on DVD. Film scholar Dagmar Brunow
127 Robert J. Corber, Cold War Femme: Lesbianism, National Identity, and Hollywood Cinema (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2011), 163-172. 128 “Het Doel van MVS|,” MVSI, accessed July 10, 2017, http://mvs.nl/info/.
40 asserts that documentary films in particular are of interest because of their “alleged index relation to ‘reality’.”129 She sees these types of films as more than just representations of history, but as theoretical tools that can be used as interventions. These interventions are needed because academic studies “share the insight that image making cannot be conceptualized outside relations of power, such as the gaze of the camera and its potentially colonial, Eurocentric, patriarchal or heteronormative perspective.”130 While this problematizes using documentary and essay film as representations of history, “filmmaking by minorities persons can (…) be regarded as an archival intervention.”131 Their inclusion in archives is therefore especially vital. As I have explored in the introduction to this thesis, amateur and home video are arguably most suitable as representations of queer experiences. IHLIA has amateur documentation of queer organizations and events in the collection. Most of these were acquired when the Homodok merged with the Lesbian Archives. The material that is in these registrations provides audiovisual testimony to a broad spectrum of activities, such as forums on lesbian motherhood, in which lesbian moms share their experiences and provide information for those looking to become mothers or fathers as well. Various kinds of performances are also captured in these videos, including those by gay or lesbian theatre groups, singers, writers and artists. Explorations of Amsterdam and its queer public spaces are represented too, providing both queer experiences in the form of commentary on these spaces as well as archiving their existence even after they have closed down, for example in registrations of ‘closing parties’ of gay and lesbian cafés. The registration of academic lectures provides insights into the kinds of discussions that were taking place around LGBT heritage in the eighties and nineties. However, collecting home video is not on the agenda. This seems like a significant omission in the collection, since these types of material are an opportunity to provide a unique look into the lived experiences of those depicted, as well as rebalance power relations by reclaiming control over representation, just like with amateur recordings of events and performances. Newer phenomena that represent queer experiences in audiovisual form, such as those described in the previous chapter on YouTube, which features millions of coming out videos or videos on topics of concern/showcasing same-sex desire, are not collected either. Evidently, in both of these cases, this is because of a lack of time and financial means
129 Dagmar Brunow, Remediating Transcultural Memory: Documentary Filmmaking as Archival Intervention (Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2015), 5. 130 Ibid., 6. 131 Ibid., 8.
41 that would allow IHLIA to include these types of media.132
3.4 The Exhibitions
IHLIA has an information centre on the third floor of the public library in Amsterdam, and this is the space where parts of their collection are exhibited as well. While there are continuous exhibitions year-round, there is one I want to pay special attention to here. Monument van Trots (Monument of Pride) was a celebration of the Homomonument in response to its thirtieth anniversary.133 This exhibition was a re-visitation of a project IHLIA did in 2007, which had the same basic premise; remembrance and celebration of the monument through personal stories in the form of video-interviews and turning these into written texts for the exhibit. IHLIA’s exhibitions often use oral history as a way to contextualize the meaning of queer experiences and public spaces, thereby connecting collective memory to individual experience. As Hayward argues, monuments provide “a more emotional connection to the past through remembrance,” which is emphasized in this project by sharing the history of the monument through queer peoples’ experiences of it.134 While the interviews can be viewed in the exhibition, they play on a screen to the side, and the volume is low, so it is hard to understand what is being said. It is therefore presented in written word and photo as well, and the interviews can be found on the YouTube channel on the exhibitions’ accompanying site. Interestingly, the interviews cannot be found in their collection database, an act that should be encouraged because it is precisely these personal accounts that are of importance to queer communities. While the monument itself is a place of (collective) memory and remembrance, archiving this monument in this way is an important part of shaping both. This way, the concept of the archive can be rethought in ways that are also relevant to museums and their exhibitions. As Judith Halberstam argues, “the archive is not simply a repository; it is also a theory of cultural relevance, a construction of collective memory and complex record of queer activity.”135 This also fits with Ann Cvetkovich’s idea of a queer archive, in which emotions and feelings are archived alongside physical and ephemeral objects. Since, as I have
132 Jasper Wiedeman (audiovisual specialist at IHLIA) in discussion with the author, July 2017. 133 Monument van Trots was on display from the 11th of Augustus to the 10th of September 2017. 134 Hayward, “Representations of Same-Sex Love in Public History,” 14. 135 Judith Halberstam, “What’s that Smell? Queer Temporalities and Subcultural Lives,” International Journal of Cultural Studies 6, no. 3 (Sep 2, 2003): 326.
42 argued in the thematic overview, the affective nature of queer archival material is emphasized in IHLIA’s collection policy, I would recommend more inclusion of these kinds of audiovisual materials. Many other grassroots, community- and LGBT archives make use of these strategies for archiving queer experiences through oral history projects. Adding these kinds of filmed interviews adds layers to the collection and provides queer experiences. IHLIA uses this participatory strategy in a substantial share of their exhibitions, which is of importance since this ‘sharing authority’ allows previously marginalized communities to have control. It is imperative to develop and maintain these kinds of connections because then, as Rao argues, the curatorial process “is informed by dialogue with a variety of sources, each with its own kind of authority.”136 This is especially significant because
this policy of consultation recognises that the donor or copyright owner is not the sole source of authority on the material and that there may be many sources of authority both within and outside the archive whose knowledge and opinions should be sought.137
While we should remain critical of the kinds of narratives oral history projects present, because, as Hayward argues, there is a tension between history and memory, she nonetheless writes that “the collection of oral histories in archives can act as the passing on of memories and histories, and can, in turn, consolidate personal and community identities today.”138 IHLIA’s exhibitions also show a focus on being more inclusive of a diverse range of people with different backgrounds, as well as questioning gender as a social construct. As I explained at the beginning of this chapter, IHLIA is closely related to the gay and lesbian movements that fought for a certain kind of equality. Also, as the organization’s name suggests, it was originally focused on gay men and lesbians, and their audiovisual holdings partly reflect this early emphasis. However, IHLIA’s head of collections argues that “while its name only refers to lesbians and gay men, IHLIA interprets its mission broadly by collecting, cataloguing, and indexing all print materials in any way relevant to LGBTIQ life (…) but also offers a unique public reference service.”139 This quote shows a focus on print materials, but the broad interpretation is still reflected in their exhibition practices. The current exhibition, for example, focuses on an activist group known as de Rooie Flikkers (The Red Fags), who opposed the campaigns of LGBT movements that attempted to
136 Rao, “Representation and Ethics in Moving Image Archives,” 108. 137 Ibid. 138 Hayward, “Representations of Same-Sex Love in Public History,” 70. 139 Van der Wel, “IHLIA,” 159.
43 normalize homosexuality.140 They attacked heteronormativity and homonormativity instead, but were both admired and despised for their position and their campaigns, in which men referred to themselves as ‘fags’ and would take to the streets ‘provocatively’ wearing dresses.141 Other relevant exhibition include Chedino & Family, described as “a photographic documentary about gender reassignment in South Africa by Julia Gunther,” Lost & Found Verloren voorwerpen: Transgender Beeldproductie (Lost objects: Transgender Image Production), and Gender as Performance, a photo series by Chris Rijksen, challenging gender as a construct.
140 Eén jurk zegt meer dan duizend woorden (A Dress Says More Than a Thousand Words) was displayed at IHLIA from the 21st of September, 2017, to the 7th of January, 2018. 141 These actions are described as provocative in the exhibition’s accompanying guide; Martien Sleutjes, “Eén jurk zegt meer dan duizend woorden: de invloed van de Rooie Flikkers (1975-1980), IHLIA LGBT Heritage, accessed October 24, 2017, https://indd.adobe.com/view/5bbfed70-2332-4775-8cef-eb6ad2a3088a.
44 4. THE AMSTERDAM CITY ARCHIVES (SAA)
4.1 The Archive
The Stadsarchief Amsterdam (Amsterdam City Archives), henceforth referred to as SAA, is a municipal archive focused on preserving and presenting the history of Amsterdam and its inhabitants through documents pertaining to the city. The oldest records go back to the 15th century. With 50 kilometers of archives, several sources describe it as the largest municipal archive in the world.142 These collections range from personal archives of people of importance to Amsterdam and its history to vast governmental archives with materials relating to their organization, finances, personnel, etc. While it is a mainly paper-based media archive, the SAA also started collecting moving images in the 1950s. Since then, films commissioned by the municipality, private (home)videos of the inhabitants of Amsterdam, and copies of feature films in which Amsterdam plays a prominent role, among others, have entered the archive. These collections reside in climate-controlled storage facilities in the Bazel, an old bank building in the city center which the archives moved to in 2006. The audiovisual collection consists of about 44.000 hours spread across 28.000 carriers. Two-thirds of this material is in audio formats, and the rest is on video and celluloid, but the latter makes up only 1% of this collection in playing time.143 However, these are only estimations based on data that employees collected through the archives’ collection management systems, ingest journals and physical counts done in the storage-space since not all material has yet received accurate description.144 The fact that the SAA is a mixed-media archive that is not exclusively dedicated to LGBT issues has several positive effects. More specifically, as argued by Kirste, mainstream, mixed-media archives “can serve the important functions of making LGBT- related materials accessible to a wide audience, and contextualizing them within the larger society.”145 Housed in an iconic architectural building in the center of the city, the SAA reaches a diverse audience consisting of about a hundred thousand visitors a year to their premises, and another
142 “The World’s Largest City Archive Uses ScopeArchiv,” Scope.ch, accessed 8 November 2017, http://www.scope.ch/images/inhaltsbilder/content/downloads/downloads/011_Amsterdam-Municipal- Archive.pdf 143 Marin Rappard, “Drageronderzoek: Video en audio bij het Stadsarchief” (Master’s Internship Research, University of Amsterdam, 2016). 144 Ibid. 145 Kirste, “Collective Effort: Archiving LGBT Moving Images,” 136.
45 one million unique visitors to the website.146 Furthermore, while researchers can access most LGBT archives’ collections, Kirste notes that “queer archives generally are not familiar to people outside the LGBT community and frequently are not well known even within this community.”147 Storing queer moving images in well-known institutions like the SAA, therefore, very possibly broadens and increases the audience that sees them. Moreover, additional holdings can be used to supplement and improve (the context of) queer moving image materials. To exemplify these claims, Kirste uses The New York Public Library (NYPL), which holds the Royal S. Marks AIDS Activist Video Collection. According to her, it is a collection “many people would overlook if it were held at a less visible institution.”148 Additionally,
the tapes complement and expand the library’s collection of AIDS-related materials, while NYPL holdings such as the organisational records of ACT UP give context to the tapes. Archiving the videotapes in an LGBT-specific repository could limit both physical viewing of the tapes and the way in which the collection is perceived: housing the tapes at NYPL acknowledges that AIDS issues include and affect people beyond the queer community.149
Similarly, IHLIA has audiovisual registrations of COC events, and NIBG holds clips of how the news framed these events, which the SAA’s COC collection could have complemented and contextualized through documents about the planning of such activities if they were held in the same institution. These paper COC archives were first donated to the SAA in 1992, at which point IHLIA did not yet exist.150 However, there are also multiple challenges to keeping queer moving images in municipal, mixed-media archives as opposed to audiovisual and community-archives. For one, as noted by Kirste, “most non-LGBT mixed media archives focus on collecting paper materials rather than moving images, so they tend to have paper rather than audiovisual expertise.”151 This lack of focus might negatively influence the preservation and access to these materials because they receive less attention and financial support. City archives might also face issues similar to LGBT archives, such as having to work with tight budgets and
146 Bert de Vries, “2016: Een jaar in de Bazel,” Stadsarchief Amsterdam, accessed October 4, 2017, https://www.amsterdam.nl/publish/pages/734088/jaarverslag2016_klein_10_3.pdf 147 Kirste, “Collective Effort: Archiving LGBT Moving Images,” 136. 148 Ibid. 149 Ibid. 150 “1226: Archief van het COC; Afdeling Amsterdam,” Gemeente Amsterdam: Stadsarchief, accessed December 4, 2017, https://archief.amsterdam/inventarissen/overzicht/1226.nl.html. 151 Kirste, “Collective Effort: Archiving LGBT Moving Images,” 136.
46 small staffs. The SAA, however, has climate-controlled storage facilities for their moving image materials, own at least some audiovisual viewing equipment, and employ a moving image specialist, which means they are better off than the majority of archives that Kirste explored. Nevertheless, limited funds have determined that there are competing interests for every decision to be made about the audiovisual collection, such as what materials can be digitized and in what order. It also means the facilities for viewing by the public are limited, so only elements that have access-copies on these carriers can be requested for viewing. In turn, this can exclusively be done on appointment and accompanied by a staff member, and distinctly requires the request of a specific item. These limitations create multiple barriers for access, and might, for some, feel like a sort of ‘outing’ of themselves as queer, even though the SAA might not feel like a safe space for them to do so. Furthermore, while the systematic digitalization of SAA’s audiovisual collection is underway, the digital versions of these materials are only for preservation and description purposes and not accessible to the public at this time. Additionally, non-LGBT archives, by definition, have holdings that relate to non- queer subjects or people. This heteronormativity can be of influence on their LGBT collections because these may “not be a priority for detailed cataloging, preservation projects, and access, and staff members may or may not be knowledgeable about queer culture.”152 Emphasizing the significance of queer moving images, and the importance of detailed description that improves access to these materials to SAA’s staff is therefore of value. Governmental archives, in particular, pose another challenge that a donation-based archive like IHLIA or an audiovisual archive such as NIBG encounter less notably. For instance, some objects that are identifiable as queer are protected under the Law of Protection of Personal Information, which limits what can and cannot be published about individuals. While this law was imposed to protect civilians’ privacy, it prohibits the use of relevant documents in queering projects. Young Historian Guido Leguit, who researched the SAA’s collections for an exhibition that was displayed during EuroPride, further adds that this outlawing of presenting someone as queer gives an idea of shame and the impression that non-normative sexuality should remain hidden.153 Ethical question about these kinds of issues, such as ‘can we out someone who did not publicly identify as non-heterosexual?’ were essential questions during the organization of the exhibition.154 Regarding the audiovisual material, discussions of sexuality are often more explicit, with queer people
152 Kirste, “Collective Effort: Archiving LGBT Moving Images,” 136. 153 Guido Leguit, “Het verhaal van Guido,” Augustus 10, 2016, http://www.jhsg.nl/wp-content/uploads/2016/08 /Queering-the-Archive-door-Guido-Leguit.pdf. 154 Paul de Jong (Jonge Historici) in discussion with the author, May 2017.
47 identifying themselves as such in the content itself, and therefore these privacy laws have less effect on their use. Instead, it is copyright protection that poses a problem, as well as the lack of availability of audiovisual apparatuses within the archive.
4.2 The Catalogue
The staff within the archive uses scopeArchiv, which is an archive information software that facilitates the management of records and links to their digital preservation counterparts. While I had access to this software for this research, the general public accesses the archives through the website, so it is important to discuss both points of entry. On the website, users can access the metadata of the archives with the help of a general search-field, or the user can access them in alphabetical order. The records cannot be ordered or searched according to media type, so it is impossible to get a detailed overview of all audiovisual materials. For this reason, the materials at the SAAs are difficult to divide into themes or time-periods because they are scattered throughout a variety of collections and difficult to track down even within these collections. This also means that finding sexual and gender diversity in this collection is somewhat challenging. The items have not received tags, keywords or other organizing structures that sort them according to themes or content, other than the archive the records belong to. The lack of tagging and division into topics obfuscates finding queer moving images for several reasons. For one, the user needs a clear indication of what they are looking for, rather than simply ‘exploring’ what is available. This has as a consequence that the user is required to have pre-existing knowledge as well. For example, many of the records I identified required knowledge of queer culture. While researching gay and lesbian nightlife in the Netherlands from the 1920s to the 1970s, for instance, I came across the ‘Hartjesdag’ (Hearts day) celebration that featured men and women in drag and delivered several results within the SAA’s collection, but objects concerning this event would be hard to find under any queer- related search-term. The same can be argued for exploring queer night life in the city. Professor of gay and lesbian studies Gert Hekma, for example, interviewed a group of gay men and lesbians for his research into queer nightlife in Amsterdam between 1930 and 1970, which is how he developed the knowledge that certain bars and cafes were open to queer people in the first place.
48 However, even when this knowledge does exist, this does not necessarily lead to finding queer experiences in the archives. For example, it was disheartening to discover that many of the cafes and bars mentioned in Hekma’s book delivered no results in the archives, implying an erasure of their queer histories. This is strange, too, because Hekma used records of their existence currently residing in the SAA. He used the city’s police records that exist because cafes and bars were under stringent laws at this time and the police would use the regulation of these laws as an excuse to patrol these spaces. It is partly because of their notes that we know that some of the patrons were “what appeared to be homosexuals.”155 Furthermore, it is in this archive that the material qualities of film and video most problematize access to these materials. Since we can rely on descriptions only, implicit gender and sexual variances might go unnoticed. Unlike paper, it is axiomatic that archivists cannot easily flick through audiovisual materials and examine their contents, as they are coded in medium-specific ways that require machinery to play, some of which are not available at the archive. Still, even if it would be possible to view all the materials, this would be an incredibly time-intensive endeavor, especially as materials are not described down to time-codes, tagged, or some are not described at all. This makes the system unforthcoming for research unless items deal explicitly with instances of same-sex desire and love. Most of the materials on celluloid have been digitized or transferred to other carriers, but as I have argued previously, access to these materials is either difficult regarding SAA’s digital materials or limited in the case of other carriers. There are, however, some films that have been released on a compilation DVD, which makes access to these moving images a little simpler, and the in-house theatre plays differing film programs year-round. These material qualities also once again reiterate the importance of detailed description for finding queer moving images. However, the use of language and descriptive cataloguing are sometimes problematic with regard to the terms used. Academic librarian Emily Drabinski poses that librarians should approach this problem through engaging it with queer theory. What this means explicitly is that librarians, and I argue this is true for archivists as well, need to acknowledge the contingency of terminology and definitions of what queer means and has meant. In practical terms, she advises against correction into what are now considered ‘correct’ terms. While she comes from a library background and her research is grounded in these sorts of institutes, her statements can be more generally applied
155 Gert Hekma, De Roze Rand van Donker Amsterdam: De Opkomst van een Homoseksuele Kroegcultuur 1930-1970 (Amsterdam: Van Gennep Amsterdam, 1992).
49 to the use of terminology in heritage institutes when she notes that
the problems of bias in library classification structures and subject language are, from a queer perspective, problems endemic to the knowledge organisation project itself. If social categories and names are understood as embedded in contingencies of space, time, and discourse, then bias is inextricable from the process of classification and cataloging. When an item is placed in a particular category or given a particular name, those decisions always reflect a particular ideology or approach to understanding the material itself. 156
According to Drabinski, librarians and archivists should, therefore, “leave the traces of historicity and ideology that have informed classification and cataloging intact,” because “such traces can reveal the limit of universal knowledge organization, inviting technical interventions that highlight the constructed nature of classification structures and controlled vocabularies.”157 Eliminating bias would only mask the archivists’ ideological (frame)work. Leaving traces of bias intact in descriptions does place “the burden of undoing the hegemony of classification and cataloging (…) to the moment librarians and archivists come into contact with users.”158 However, this provides them with the opportunity to emphasize the discursivity of their work and that of memory institutions. For instance, archivists and librarians can engage “in critical reflection with users about what they do and do not see in the catalog.”159 An example of this is visible on the website of Atria, a knowledge institute focused on archiving women’s and feminist history. When searching the collection, a thesaurus explains what the contemporary preferred terms are, without deleting traces of the old ones.160 ‘Homophile,’ for example, is still in the thesaurus, but is simply flagged as a ‘non-preferred term,’ and ‘homosexuality’ is recommended for use instead. Since then, terminology has changed again, and there are some who dislike homosexuality due to its connection to medical classifications of queer identities as a disorder.161 Still, such a thesaurus is a way to ‘correct’ terminology without deleting the traces of ideology that they embody.
156 Emily Drabinski, “Queering the Catalog: Queer Theory and the Politics of Correction,” Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy 83, no. 2 (2013): 108. 157 Ibid., 109. 158 Ibid. 159 Ibid. 160 “Women’s thesaurus,” Atria, accessed July 6, 2017, https://www.atria.nl/search/collectie/thes/?lang=en. 161 Jeremy W. Peters, “The Decline and Fall of the ‘H’ Word,” NYTimes, March 21, 2014, https://www.ny times.com/2014/03/23/fashion/gays-lesbians-the-term-homosexual.html?_r=0
50
4.3 The Collection
The types of sources from which SAA’s holdings stem can broadly be divided into several categories, namely sources that are either semi-professional media organizations, amateur or family archives, governmental archives, business archives, and (local) broadcast archives. The material on and presence of same-sex love or desire related imaginary differs per category. The personal archives deliver a wealth of related material, albeit usually not in audiovisual formats. The collection of Benno Premsela, for example, was donated to the Amsterdam City Archive by his life-partner. He was the first director of the COC and a life- long advocate of gay rights. Among this collection are slides, audiovisual material, and compilations that he made himself. The paper archives are of interest here too, since they provide context and background information on his participation in television shows or films. Furthermore, he videotaped multiple programs or event registrations that have a link to his work. There is even an amateur 8mm home-video from 1935 of the Premsela family on a winter’s holiday, and videotaped recordings of the party that was thrown at the Stedelijk Museum when Premsela retired; material that may have little to do with his sexuality, but that could be of interest anyhow. The same is true for the personal archives of Bet van Beeren, who owned cafe ’t Mandje, widely recognized as one of the first bars where gay men and lesbians did not have to hide their sexuality.162 Bet’s comfortable position towards her queerness at a time when this was still very taboo gives striking views of early queer experience in Amsterdam. Again, these archives lack audiovisual material, except for a set of records that she played at the cafe. Although these kinds of objects may not say a lot about Bet, other than her tastes in music, they were part of a lived experience for many queer people and as such can be experienced as very personal and relevant to the queer history of Amsterdam. While the inclusion of these personal archives, sometimes featuring home videos, self-made compilations of clips relating to same-sex love or desire, and personal artefacts is commendable, the issue with the inclusion of these private archives in municipal instead of community archives is that it these tend to reflect a specific demographic. For community
162 “30344: Archief van Café ’t Mandje,” Gemeente Amsterdam: Stadsarchief, accessed March 16, 2017, https://archief.amsterdam/inventarissen/overzicht/30344.nl.html.
51 archives, such as LGBT archives, collection policies usually stipulate that every life is worth archiving. In contrast, the SAA’s collection policies reiterate that archival materials ‘of importance’ to the history of Amsterdam are acquired and preserved. Evidently, ‘of importance’ is a subjective term with which to describe an individual or collection. Moreover, this tendency to only obtain or filter the donations of well-known or influential people usually creates the dominance of a particular demographic over another. For example, it is precisely the middle-class, white male that dominates the construction of LGBT activism this way. Historian Marc Stein researched the role archival projects play in what he describes as the “canonization of homophile sexual respectability,” pertaining to “the elevation of more respectable groups and periodicals—predominantly white and middle-class in orientation—to positions of virtually unquestioned authority and leadership in discussions of homophile history.”163 Because of its contingency, ‘sexual respectability’ is difficult to define, but Stein describes it as a tendency within “homophile activism that affirmed heteronormative sexual ideals such as monogamy and rejected non- normative and non-prescriptive forms of sexual expression such as pornography, public sex, and sex work.”164 Stein uses the concept of ‘sexual radicalism’ to indicate approaches to sexual politics that contested or opposed this sexual respectability.165 Because of the domination of sexual respectability, it is challenging to portray sexual radicalism with the help of SAA’s (audiovisual) collection since items that do relate to public sex and sex work stem from police reports condemning or policing such acts. As the de facto archive for local businesses and organizations, the Amsterdam City Archive receives donations from these kinds of sources as well, and as such the Amsterdam division of the COC was donated to the archive. However, audiovisual material is all but absent in this specific archive, and it is a paper-based archive that remains a little distanced from personal experiences of queerness, for example in the form of documents about financial or membership situations. These are, however, relevant contextual documents and their safekeeping here is still significant. Interestingly, it is local places where LGBT- communities gathered, such as the theatre, that offer a surprising amount of audiovisual material of interest. For example, The Anthony Theater has provided performance registrations of their drag-performances, and the Carré Theater archives contribute a film negative of a ballet by Hans van Manen, a queer choreographer.
163 Marc Stein, “Canonizing Homophile Sexual Respectability: Archives, History, and Memory,” Radical History Review 120 (Fall 2014): 53. 164 Ibid., 71. 165 Ibid.
52 (Semi-professional) local radio and television is another source that produces many materials in which same-sex love or desire is visible, such as in archives of AT5 news segments, Migrantentelevisie and SALTO. It is in these archives that it is apparent how media specific to Amsterdam have represented homosexuality in media, similar to NIBG’s collection but on a smaller scale and more localized. In the collection of the Vereeniging Vreemdelingen Verkeer (VVV), an organization dedicated to tourism and tourist information, many videos were meant for traveling agencies that give audiovisual tours of Amsterdam and the Netherlands. An example of this would be Appunti Disordinati, a promotional film for Italian tourists. The archivist responsible for the description of this film explicitly lists that there are images of “(…) public transport, bikes, coffee shops, Museum Amstelkring, Homomonument, homosexuality, clogs (…)”, etc.166 It is in these videos that the proclaimed tolerance and rich history of LGBT rights and accounts are among its selling points. They might, therefore, be of interest to those studying the representation of Amsterdam, and by extension, what I have previously argued as the representation of the Netherlands as an example of tolerance and freedom to the world.
4.4 Exhibitions and Projects
Although the SAA has a collection policy that reflects the polysemy of its records, the actual interactions users can have with its collection online are somewhat limited.167 Stadsarchief voor Amsterdammers wereldwijd (City Archives for Amsterdam’s inhabitants worldwide), the SAA’s strategy papers for 2011-2015, display an acute awareness of the archives’ role in facilitating the making of history, as well as attentiveness to its constructed nature. This recognition is evident, for example, in their mission statement, which notes that “The City Archives (…) strives to offer broad interpretation possibilities of Amsterdam’s present and past to current users and future generations.”168 Bert de Vries, the archive’s director, states on the website that Amsterdam is a “(…) city with a special history of freedom and tolerance,” and that he is “especially proud of our collection, in which this history is reflected. A
166 “Appunti Disordinati,” ScopeArchiv. 167 As I stated in chapter 1, polysemy refers to an ability to have multiple meanings. 168 “Stadsarchief voor Amsterdammers Wereldwijd: Strategie van het Stadsarchief Amsterdam 2011 – 2015,” Gemeente Amsterdam: Stadsarchief, April, 2011, https://www.amsterdam.nl/publish/pages/734088/strategienota _2011_2015.pdf, 5.
53 collection that we carefully safeguard, expand, digitize and make accessible.”169 However, what follows seems to contradict the potentiality of broad interpretation opportunities when De Vries notes that “our enthusiastic employees dispose of an enormous knowledge of the history of the city. With this knowledge, we help the visitor with their research and tell stories about the city in the form of exhibits and events,” implying a more top-down approach.170 This limitation is visible on the website, which has few options for interacting with the collection. The web portal lacks participation with its users in the form of tagging or other ways in which they can explore the archives in a way that suits their needs. The ‘Archiefbank’ (Archive Bank) is only accessible through searching for a specific word, or in alphabetical order. Items in the collection have not received keywords with which to identify a common theme. Furthermore, records are not and cannot be tagged, saved, linked to other documents, or interacted with in any way aside from reading the description given by an archivist. The paper records can, of course, be requested for viewing and interpretation in the SAA’s building. Still, including participatory practices would simplify the identification of records, audiovisual or not, of queer importance, and ensure that not every user has to go on such a hunt individually. There is, however, one interaction in which users have impact on the SAA’s practices. The archive employs a crowdfunding system in which users can request the digitization of specific documents they are interested in. The user then pays a small amount and receives the digital record, and in turn, this digital file becomes visible on the website for other users too. This system means that there is a democratization of the digitalization process because users partially decide what parts of the collection are digitized. This practice is promising since this means (queer) people get the power to ensure the safeguarding of their histories. However, due to the high costs of digitization of audiovisual media and copyright issues, the crowd- funding system is exclusive to paper and photographic collections and it still the audiovisual expert who decides which parts of these acquisitions get digitized and in what order. Another example of the curated nature of the provision of access is exhibited under ‘Stukken’ (Records). Sorted according to several themes, a few pieces of significance in the collection are highlighted that best represent that theme. For example, under ‘Feest’ (Party), a drawing of Hartjesdag, a holiday in the Netherlands that goes back to the early 1900s, and in
169 “Bedrijfsprofiel Stadsarchief Amsterdam,” Gemeente Amsterdam: Stadsarchief, accessed September 14, 2017, www.amsterdam.nl/stadsarchief/organisatie/bedrijfsprofiel/ 170 Ibid.
54 which men dressed as women and vice versa, is included. A picture postcard of a Gay Pride float is included under ‘Grachten en torens’ (Canals and towers) and includes contextual information about the event. Gay and lesbian rights are well represented under ‘Liefde’ (love), too, first through a cover of a Gay Krant zine, which is available in the archive’s library and references the first gay marriages. Users can also find a photo of Bet van Beeren and a short biography on this page, with references to her sexuality and cafe ‘t Mandje. A record of the sodomy process against Piet Wagenaar in 1798 is also present, and the contextualizing text explains how Dutch courts sentenced him to prison for 15 years for sodomy, and that he died in prison during this sentence. Aside from being featured under ‘Liefde, it is also mentioned under ‘Misdaad’ (Crime). A record such as this exemplifies several issues in identifying same-sex love in archival records; for one, the records often exist because of people condemning or punishing it. This also means these records do not provide any further information on the nature of this relationship or Pieter Wagenaar’s sexuality and experience, only an act of same-sex intimacy. Furthermore, it shows how queer history and trauma are intrinsically linked. It is, however, significant that queer objects are mentioned throughout this collection showcase, pointing out to users of the archive that objects of significance for queer communities reside in these archives. Additionally, most of the exhibitions are traditionally curated by employees of the archive. In American historical organizations, Ferentinos noticed that “archives have tended to present LGBT history more commonly than museums and historic sites.”171 The reasons she lists for this are triple, namely that; “exhibits of two-dimensional objects are generally less expensive to produce, exhibit spaces at archives are often quite a bit smaller than museum galleries, and archives usually change their exhibits more frequently than museums, allowing for a greater range of topics to be explored.”172 The same is true for the Amsterdam City Archives, which has several exhibitions spaces and offers differing looks into the history of Amsterdam year-round. There is a bigger space with exhibitions that usually last at about six months, but most of these main exhibitions have focused on the history of the city and its architecture through and with the use of their historic-geographic and photographic collection. The main hall of the Bazel building continually presents short-term, smaller exhibitions that are free to visit and are frequently focused on specific people, some of whom identified as gay or queer. Benno Premsela, for example, has been the focus of this small display, and currently, the exhibit is about the life and career of comedian Wim Sonneveld, as
171 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites, 111. 172 Ibid.
55 shown through objects and photographs by well-known photographers. While his career and the photographers behind the photographs that are featured are the focus of the exhibition, there is a small collage of photos of him and his two life-partners in front of their house in France, with the two partners posing by his side. Without being explicit about his sexuality, the text accompanying this photo makes it clear that Sonneveld was in a relationship with both men in the picture. This uncomplicated mention of a non-normative situation that is queer and also non-monogamous, without drawing attention to that fact, is a queering strategy that works to normalize such relationships. However, these men reflect what I have previously argued as being the dominant represented demographic, and I would contend for the exhibition of a more diverse people regarding race, class, (dis)ability and gender. The Amsterdam City Archives has had one exhibition that explicitly dealt with how archivists, researchers or the general public can find queer life and LGBT history in their archives. The project was part of the Queering the Archive initiative, in collaboration with Jonge Historici, an organization that gives young historians the chance to publish research on matters of significance to them. During this project, a group of young historians researched the collection for instances of same-sex love, cultivating in a small exhibition that was presented during Europride in 2016. Such an endeavor is supportive of inclusivity and diversity, but the kinds of records that are in a local, governmental archive like this ensured that most of the objects pertained to the criminalization of same-sex love or desire, an issue that the display of queer archival material struggles with in general. The inclusion of objects that might not appear to be queer at face value can be an answer to this concern, but requires thorough research and usually a pre-existing knowledge of queer culture and history, as well as the inclusion of perhaps less-respectable or well-known individuals. In particular, historian of gender and sexuality Regina Kunzel argues that “since so much of the archive available to queer historians is authored by people who judge, police, condemn, and punish nonnormative sexuality and gender, the methodology of reading against the grain is perhaps the key methodological strategy of queer history, as it is for other histories of marginalization.”173 The project is also an example of the importance of outreach programs. Community outreach is an essential factor in serving people who have traditionally been silenced or have histories that are veiled in secrecy and destruction of evidence. While a queer historian and many dedicated allies organized the exhibition, some queer people felt their communities were not involved enough. They questioned why and how straight people felt like they could
173 Daniel Marshall, Kevin P. Murphy, and Zeb Tortorici, “Queering Archives: A Roundtable Discussion,” Radical History Review 122 (May 2015): 214.
56 represent their histories if they did not share their lived experience.174 Developing these types of exhibits through outreach programs that share authority and ensures inclusion of those depicted might ameliorate bias about such projects. It could be an indication that there needs to be more trust between queer communities and allies, too, so they know that their history will be dealt with respectfully and appropriately and that allies can and should be involved, for example through oral history projects. For an example of the kind of inclusion I am referring to, we can turn to grassroots and independent archives, such as the Lesbian Herstory Archives (LHA) in New York. The LHA displays parts of their audiovisual collections online in a section titled ‘Herstories: Audio/Visual Collections.’ It features thematic overviews of some of their digitized copies of oral history cassettes and videotapes. Asking for or creating these kinds of recordings as an archive overcomes copyright barriers and they can therefore be included in online presentations, which allows more people to access the collections than on-site viewing on a request basis would. Another fundamental aspect of the LHA’s online portal is the contextualization of their (audiovisual) collection. Users can search for recordings in the catalogue system, but there is another page that presents themed overviews. There are detailed texts for each collection, describing their specific historical contexts. Furthermore, these moving images, audio recordings and photos are embedded into the text, so it is clear how to place these heritage materials into certain contexts and understand them more comprehensively. Additionally, featuring oral history materials in which lesbian women share their personal life experiences in addition to their historical contexts juxtaposes personal stories and public historical narratives in meaningful ways. Consequently, the online platform enables queer communities to present their stories with clear narratives and historical relevance. This is significant because the preservation of cultural heritage extends beyond objects; it is also essential to preserve their contexts and relevance to broader historical developments.175 The Atria Kennisintituut also exemplifies the inclusion of more personal narratives. For instance, Atria produced five short oral history films, each featuring an influential lesbian. These sorts of productions are to ensure the safekeeping of the activities of these women, as well as their lived experience as lesbians. The videos were displayed at the Atria facilities and the Amsterdam Museum during EuroPride in 2016, are now part of their
174 Paul de Jong (Jonge Historici) in discussion with the author, May 2017. 175 Chia-Wei Tung and Marin Rappard, “Representation of Minority Communities on Archives’ Online Platforms” (Digital Heritage Master Course Paper, University of Amsterdam, 2016).
57 collection and can still be viewed on YouTube. Oral history projects are arguably especially suited for representation of queer lives since oral history is “rooted in an anti-elitist, antihierarchical politic that seeks to empower the oppressed.”176 They also bring more emotional aspects into the archive than only documents would. In a video by Atria, director of the Aletta Jacobs fund Saskia Wieringa comments on the importance of oral history to do this. In the video, she comments on the archive of Aletta Jacobs; “how nice would it be if, aside from the documents on her accomplishments, we had records of how she felt. Of her emotions. But we don’t. Those are the sorts of things we now try to provide through our projects involving video-documentation.”177 If Amsterdam wants to improve the representation of the diversity among its inhabitants and the histories that have allowed this heterogeneity, this local archive could be a great instrument to do so if they develop outreach projects that capture these experiences. Undertaking these types of projects may also increase the prominence of the SAA’s audiovisual collection, which is now underutilized in SAA’s presentations. None of the references to gender or sexual diversity under ‘Stukken’ are in the form of audiovisual material, for example, nor were moving images used in the EuroPride exhibition. While sexual and gender diversity are included in the SAA’s policies and practices in meaningful ways, audiovisual material is not yet fully included in these practices.
176 Elise Chenier, “Reclaiming the Lesbian Archives,” The Oral History Review 43, No. 1 (2016): 170–171. 177 Atria Kennisinstituut, “Oral History: Waarom en voorbeelden,” YouTube video, February 2, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVkd51ai9Oc.
58 5. CONCLUSION
Increasing inclusivity and diversity of sexual and gender identities in archives and museums has been an important topic of study, and in practice these projects have taken many different shapes. The aim of this thesis was to provide insights into the way audiovisual materials are utilized in doing this, through the exploration of the collections, practices and policies of three prominent Dutch institutions that have audiovisual holdings. In general, it is clear that the audiovisual material is well-cared for; all three organisations have climate-controlled spaces that provide optimal storage. Continued access and sustainable preservation methods are more of an issue, especially at IHLIA and the SAA, since their resources are more limited to arrange it than at NIBG because their audiovisual collections are only a (small) part of their holdings and therefore do not receive all efforts and funds. While all these institutes have material of importance, it is noteworthy that (queer) archival footage is somewhat underutilized in exhibits and presentations, which tend to focus on objects and texts. If footage is presented, especially at IHLIA, it is often in the form of oral history projects, which I argued is a significant way to enrich existing collections because they can both expand on existing holdings as well as add-on diverse experiences and expressions of sexual and gender identity. What became clear as well is that these are very different institutions, that deal with inclusivity in different ways. The Netherlands Institute for NIBG is a national, mainstream archive and posits itself as such, serving the nation in a ‘one size fits all’ narrative. The Amsterdam City Archive, on the other hand, is a local archive that, while of interest to those outside the city, acts as a facilitator between the people and the parts of the past that they possess. Diversity colours the city, and this is reflected in their policies and projects geared towards its users, but could be improved even more by allowing more interaction with their collection online. IHLIA is a community-based archive and therefore focused on the issues and concerns of queer communities, and emphasizes the importance of personal narratives in juxtaposition to collective ones, which is important for the representation of diversity because it allows a multitude of voices and experiences, sometimes even competing, to exist and be seen alongside each other.
What I have tried to maintain throughout this thesis is that being inclusive is an enrichment to memory organizations. Especially since, as Susan Ferentinos argues, there are many benefits to catering to specific communities. The reasons she lists are quadrupple, namely that doing
59 this creates public dialogue, seeks an inclusive national past, encourages visitor and collection growth and above all, that there is power in revealing lost history.178 Not being included in the narratives memory institutions present negatively influences individuals and communities, and their increased visibility would help ensure that anyone can walk into an archive and museum and recognize something of themselves in their collections and exhibitions, which is both validating and empowering. Yet, the staff members of many museums and archives display a somewhat casual attitude towards minority representation. As noted by Lonneke van den Hoonaard, trying to engage with organizations that have collections of interest is difficult since their employees usually react positively to the initiative, but do not see how their organization should bear responsibility for engaging with the topic of inclusion. For some reason, “there is a sense that these types of histories represent special interests rather than a more inclusive past.”179 This is especially true in the Netherlands, because of an early achieved relative acceptance that depoliticized queerness and led to homonormative ideals that do not challenge heteronormativity. I therefore argue for a form of queering archives and museums that do, mainly by exposing these mechanisms. I have tried to display that the idea of a neutral archive that simply caters to all its users is problematic, since it has widely been discussed that archives are social constructs that support particular power-relations. The materials in archives like NIBG are particularly important to contextualize and reflect on, because television plays a specific role in how the moving image shapes a society, and LGBTIQ people are and were marginalized on mainstream television. As Brown and Brown claim, “the television archive is never a container for a nation’s pre-existing memory; rather, it takes part in constructing cultural memory and understandings concerning the nation.”180 I aimed to show that inclusive approaches that showcase a diverse range of voices and identities is therefore especially crucial. I started this thesis with the claim that the audiovisual archival record in general has a significant role to play in representing suppressed groups and minorities. As film scholar Dagmar Brunow argues, “archival footage allows us to rethink notions of mediality, of the politics of representation, of the colonial and Eurocentric gaze and other power relations
178 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites, 9-13. 179 Manon S. Parry, and Jasmijn van Houten. “Exceptional or Excluded: Women’s History in the Netherlands,” in Feminism and Museums: Intervention, Disruption, Change (MuseumsEtc, forthcoming Spring 2018), 5. 180 Richard Harvey Brown and Beth Davis-Brown, “The Making of Memory: The Politics of Archives, Libraries and Museums in the Construction of National Consciousness,” History of the Human Sciences 11, no.4 (1998): 22.
60 prevalent in image making, of historiography and canon formation.”181 Furthermore, there is a strong connection between archival footage and memory. An example of the significance of queer archival footage as memory is in its relation to AIDS, and how the audiovisual ‘bore witness’ to the disease and its consequences.182 Audiovisual materials within exhibitions should, therefore, not merely serve as illustrations of written information, but also as historical sources in their own right, and can be used as tools when queering collections. The increased utilization of materials produced by or focusing on queer people can be a solution to issues of representation. I have therefore contended for the importance of, for example, amateur productions and home video. However, I found that in both mainstream and moving image archives, these kinds of materials are somewhat underrepresented. Community archives are usually more inclusive of amateur and home video, because these are seen as grassroots forms of history telling that empower marginalized groups. Conversely, IHLIA has many amateur registrations of queer events, but home video is not actively collected. The SAA does have some home movies, but only when they are ‘of importance’ to the history of Amsterdam, and less so with relation to the representation of a diverse range of people. I encourage more active acquisition of these types of moving images and side with Brunow when she calls filmmaking by minorities an archival intervention. Especially in essay films and films that utilize archival footage, these re-mediations can challenge historical and ideological narratives.183 Furthermore, no matter through what kind of archive or museum you access LGBT history, I have found that you are bound to access it through trauma in one way or another. As I have shown in the thematic overview of chapter 2, non-normative gender expressions and sexualities are for a large part portrayed in relation to their issues in the collection of NIBG, for example, but progress is definitively visible as well. I would, in similarity to Ferentinos and Hayward, advice against using a progress narrative in exhibitions about LGBTIQ history, and support a multiple narrative solution in which there is place for both progress and criticism instead. Not everyone will identify with either a traumatic or celebratory history and as Ferentinos points out, “older people are survivors of an era when openness about one’s sexual orientation and/or transgender identity quite possibly means ostracism, job loss, violence, dishonourable military discharge, loss of parental custody
181 Dagmar Brunow, Remediating Transcultural Memory: Documentary Filmmaking as Archival Intervention (Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2015), 1. 182 Roger Hallas, Reframing Bodies: AIDS, Bearing Witness, and the Queer Moving Image (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009). 183 Brunow, Remediating Transcultural Memory: Documentary Filmmaking as Archival Intervention.
61 rights, rejection by church and family, and/or confinement to a mental hospital.”184 Dealing with this kind of trauma is not only the responsibility of the researcher but also of the people constructing LGBTIQ histories. These delicacies also refer to a more general discussion on how to include queer perspectives in museums and archives and what constitutes inclusive practice. As Cvetkovich argues, it is important to establish a “queer archive, not just an LGBT archive—not just inclusion but transformation of what counts as an archive and innovative approaches to an engaged public history that connects the past with the present to create a history of the present.”185 I have discussed that it is therefore of importance that initiatives go beyond providing queer visions on existing collections. The goal is to create an inclusive organisation, and presentation is just a small part of this. It is not enough to only introduce a minority into “histories from which they were formally excluded – it is crucial to expose the mechanisms through which such exclusion occurred and continues to be rationalized.”186 Simply dedicating temporary projects/exhibitions to minority communities is, therefore, not fully sufficient, since this can “serve to affirm rather than challenge exclusionary approaches if not coupled with an examination of the processes involved.”187 In other words, I have attempted to portray that there is a tension between assimilating queer life into heteronormative terms, or affirming exclusionary approaches by creating temporary, focused exhibitions. Integrating queer voices and histories with the use of ephemeral material might provide vital opportunities, because, as Newman and Zisman note, “rather than merely writing queer histories into traditional archives, feigning a linear historical trajectory, (…) archives might enjoy in the multiplicity and contradictions of oral stories, personal archives, and text- and video-based documentation.”188 This relates to the use of artists interventions and performances as a form of inclusion as well. With regards to the archives discussed in this thesis, one of the main issues is that interested parties have to arrange for the copyrights themselves. There is great interest in the audiovisual collection from scientists, artists and curators to use IHLIA’s audiovisual materials, for example, but the costs of copyrights are often so astronomical that they simply cannot afford to use the them.189 This unfortunately means that much relevant material goes
184 Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites, 164. 185 Cvetkovich, An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality and Lesbian Public, 222. 186 Parry and Van Houten, “Exceptional or Excluded: Women’s History in the Netherlands,” 15-16. 187 Ibid., 16. 188 Laine Newmann, “Absent, Invisible, and Incoherent: Archiving Queer Women’s Performance Futurities,” Canadian Theatre Review 163 (Summer 2015): 24. 189 Lonneke van den Hoonaard (director of IHLIA) in discussion with the author, May 2017.
62 unused. This is an issue that extends beyond the use of queer moving images and that would benefit from extensive research and reform, both of which are well beyond the scope of this thesis, but important to note nonetheless, since this is likely an important factor in the limited use of audiovisual materials in exhibitions. NIBG’s New Media: New Stories from the Archive exhibit was a great example of the stimulation of artistic re-use and re-mediation, and I would argue that this would be significant as a long-term possibility. This is especially true because allowing artistic queer participation in the form of events and performances can enrich existing collections and exhibitions. An example would be Left Outside Alone by artist Travis Alabanza, performed at the Queer and Now festival at the Tate Britain museum, in which they responded not only to the history of the museum, but also to their perceived pink- and white washing of the institution. This was in response to Tate’s Queer Art 1867-now exhibition, which Alabanza believes “fails, erases and leaves out the narratives of Black and PoC queer history.”190 Inviting these kinds of daring, critical performances by queer artists can pose audiences and even the museum professionals with uncomfortable questions. Simultaneously, Alabanza questioned the tokenistic nature of such dedicated exhibitions and festivals when they exclaimed “you can’t just have us for one day, for one event, to black up your queer event and leave us out this exhibition? Our ancestors built this gallery, now I’m here to tear it down.”191 Allowing criticism and engagement with the narrative to be presented within the institution’s “white walls” is a more radical, but powerful way of exhibiting a multitude of voices, although it is unfortunate that such a response was necessary in the first place. I argue that it is, in turn, of importance to document and archive these kinds of performances, and include them in LGBTIQ collections. As Laine Newman notes, a truly queer archive
revels in valuing personal stories as much as legal documents and national records, seeking the spectators’ response alongside the performers’, and recognizing not only the constructedness of history and its relationship to power but also the ways in which it can be subverted and reclaimed.192
The recording of Left Outside Alone is an excellent example of a performers’ emotional response that is part of their experience as a black, gender non-conforming artist. Newman continues that “such an archive refuses the separation of past, present, and future and
190 Travis Alabanza, Facebook post, June 26, 2017, https://www.facebook.com/travisalabanzaartist/videos/1783 018211723248/ 191 Ibid. 192 Newman, “Absent, Invisible, and Incoherent,” 24.
63 explores the ways in which these temporalities are in constant shifting dialogue. Archiving performance in this way is a form of activism and protest as much as it is scholarship.”193 I agree with her statement that these performances can then be seen as historical documents, too. Furthermore, I am of the opinion that these performances and events are crucial because they tend to feature more radical modes of queerness. Radical, politicized queerness can provide shelter to those feeling like they do not fit into ‘accepted’ forms of non- normative sexualities and genders. For archives and museums, supporting or organizing such festivals and events can expand their understanding of queerness and improve their relationship to queer communities. Queeristan, for example, is a yearly festival in Amsterdam that does not shy away from dealing with more difficult topics. For instance, the focus for last year’s festival was on “issues around white privilege, refugees, sex work, intersectionality, self-defence, and direct-action skills.”194 They are also not afraid to criticise the narratives put forth by their ‘own’ communities in terms of the assimilation of queer life into heteronormative ideals. A satirical video promo for Queeristan 2013 showcases this stance. The video is set up as an infomercial, advertising the sale of the ‘HomoNormativity’ drug, which allows the taker to erase their queerness for more acceptable forms of homosexuality. Their ending slogan, “nobody likes a radical queer!”, aimed at both society in general and LGBT groups, is especially powerful.195 Particularly because, as Newman argues, “institutional or state-funded archives include particular normative queer histories in order to conceal or justify the erasure of more deviant identities.”196 Once again, I argue for moving beyond these normative queer histories to be inclusive of many gender and sexual identities and expressions. I want to reiterate here that we should not diminish the accomplishments of LGBT-rights groups and activists, which have certainly been significant in the fight for equality. It only becomes problematic when limited expressions of queerness become the sole focus of queer representation. I am also supportive of radical queerness because, while there are many ongoing projects to enhance the representation of LGBTIQ people, it is important not to become complacent and to keep reflecting critically on the narrative that is presented. One issue that comes up regularly is that of intersectionality. Kimberly Crenshaw developed this concept to
193 Ibid. 194 “Call Out for Queeristan 2017,” online flyer, May 30, 2017, https://queeristan.org/2017/05/30/call-out-2017/. 195 Casey Butler-Camp, “Queeristan 2013 Video Promo - HomoNormativity Ad,” Youtube Video, 3:05, April 28, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T7GMFiJt_M&t=17s. 196 Newman, “Absent, Invisible, and Incoherent,” 22.
64 “demonstrate that no one axis of oppression (race, gender, sexuality, class, etc.) can be regarded separately from all others.”197 In projects trying to enhance gender and sexual diversity, this issue has meant a lack of diversity on other spectra, and attention focused on white, middle-class and educated gay and lesbian people, maintaining an oppression of those outside this group.198 Additionally, focussing on certain groups over others risks homogenising LGBTIQ communities. There is not one common queer experience, but a multitude of possibilities. This lack of diversity is not unique to (audiovisual) archives, though, and is a systematic issue. For example, multiple scholars have found issues of intersectionality at other sites of public history as well.199 Queering collections provides an opportunity to deal with and reflect on these issues. There are many identities beyond the binary divides of male/female and gay/straight that warrant attention and representation. In order to truly queer a collection, it is of importance to move beyond these neat categories and challenge notions of gender and sexuality as portrayed in media and society.
In conclusion, I believe inclusivity should be on the agenda of any institution that deals with representing history in one way or another. Queering collections can be done in a multitude of ways, as long as sustainability is kept in mind. When endeavouring on these kinds of projects, working with the communities being represented is of importance. Their involvement provides the curator, historian, or archivist with the feedback that is needed. All three audiovisual collections discussed in this thesis hold footage of significance for queer communities, albeit in different forms, from different sources and representative of different experiences. The key aspect for queering these collections will be the consideration of the communities that are being represented in terms of diversity, even within these communities, so that all users can have access to these materials and recognize themselves in the collections of the memory institutions the Netherlands has to offer.
197 Meg-John Barker and Julie Scheele, Queer Theory: A Graphic History (London: Icon Books Ltd, 2016), 47. 198 Barker and Scheele, Queer Theory, 26. 199 See Hayward, “Representations of Same-Sex Love in Public History”; Ferentinos, Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites.
65 SOURCES CITED
Alexander, Jonathan, and Jacqueline Rhodes. “Queer Rhetoric and the Pleasures of the Archive.” Enculturation. Last modified 2012. http://enculturation.net/files/Queer Rhetoric/queerarchive/Home.html.
Anjali, Arondekar, Ann Cvetkovich, Christina B. Hanhardt, Regina Kunzel, Tavia Nyong’o, Juana María Rodríguez, Susan Stryker, Daniel Marshall, Kevin P. Murphy, and Zeb Tortorici. “Queering Archives: A Roundtable Discussion.” Radical History Review 122 (May 2015): 211–231.
Aron, Michele, ed. New Queer Cinema: A Critical Reader. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004.
Barker, Meg-John, and Julia Scheele. Queer: A Graphic History. London: Icon Books Ltd, 2016. Print.
Becker, Snowden. “Family in a Can: Presenting and Preserving Home Movies in Museums.” The Moving Image 1, no. 2 (2001): 89–106.
Bilefsky, Dan. “Dutch Men Hold Hands in Solidarity with Attacked Gay Couple.” New York Times, April 6, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/world/europe/dutch-men- hold-hands.html.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/world/europe/dutch-men-hold- hands.html.
Brown, Andrew. “A Queer Memory: Guilt, Disappearance, and the YouTube ‘Archive’.” Performing Arts Resources 28 (2011): 329-335, 346.
Brown, Richard Harvey, and Beth Davis-Brown. “The Making of Memory: The Politics of Archives, Libraries and Museums in the Construction of National Consciousness.” History of the Human Sciences 11, no.4 (1998): 17-32.
Brunow, Dagmar. Remediating Transcultural Memory: Documentary Filmmaking as Archival Intervention. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2015.
66 Butler, David, dir. Calamity Jane. 1953; Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 2003. DVD.
Chenier, Elise. “Reclaiming the Lesbian Archives.” The Oral History Review 43, no. 1 (February 2016): 170–182.
Connolly, Matthew. “Montgomery Clift: Queer Star.” The Velvet Light Trap - A Critical Journal of Film and Television 74 (Fall 2014): 90-92.
Cook, Terry. “Evidence, Memory, Identity and Community: Four Shifting Archival Paradigms.” Archival Science 13, no. 2 (2012): 95-120.
Corber, Robert J. Cold War Femme: Lesbianism, National Identity, and Hollywood Cinema. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2011.
Cvetkovich, Ann. An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality and Lesbian Public Cultures. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.
Cvetkovich, Ann. “Photographing Objects: Art as Queer Archival Practice.” In Lost and Found: Queerying the Archive, edited by Mathias Danbolt, Jane Rowley, and Louise Wolthers. Copenhagen: Nikolaj, Copenhagen Art Center, 2009: 49-65.
Czach, Liz. “Film Festivals, Programming, and the Building of a National Cinema.” The Moving Image 4, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 76-88.
Dodd, Jocelyn, and Richard Sandell. Including Museum: Perspective on Museums, Galleries and Social Inclusion. Leicester: RCMG, 2001.
Drabinski, Emily. “Queering the Catalog: Queer Theory and the Politics of Correction.” Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy 83, no. 2 (2013): 94–111.
Duggan, Lisa. “The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neoliberalism,” in Materializing Democracy: Towards a Revitalized Cultural Politics, edited by R. Castronova and D.D. Nelson, 175-194. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002.
67 “Dutch Men Walk Hand in Hand for Solidarity After Gay Couple Attacked.” The Guardian, April 05, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/06/dutch-men-hand-in- hand-solidarity-gay-couple-attacked.
Duyvendak, Jan Willem. “The Depoliticization of the Dutch Gay Identity, or Why Dutch Gays Aren’t Queer.” In Queer Theory/Sociology, edited by Steven Seidman, 421 - 38. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1996.
Edmondson, Ray. The Philosophy of Audiovisual Archiving. Paris: UNESCO, 1998.
Edmonson, Ray. Audiovisual Archiving: Philosophy and Principles. Paris, UNESCO; Bankok, UNESCO Office Bangkok, 2016.
Fejes, Fred, and Kevin Petrich. “Invisibility, Homophobia, and Heterosexism: Lesbians, Gays and the Media.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 10, no. 4 (1993): 396-423.
Ferentinos, Susan. Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Fossati, Giovanna. From Grain to Pixel: The Archival Life of Film in Transition. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009.
Foster, Meg. “Online and Plugged In? Public History and Historians in the Digital Age.” Public History Review 21 (2014): 1-19.
Halberstam, Judith. “What’s that Smell? Queer Temporalities and Subcultural Lives.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 6, no. 3 (Sep 2, 2003): 313-333.
Hallas, Roger. Reframing Bodies: AIDS, Bearing Witness, and the Queer Moving Image. Durham/London: Duke University Press, 2009.
Haslam, Mark. “Vision, Authority, Context: Cornerstones of Curation and Programming.” The Moving Image 4, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 48-59.
68
Hayward, Claire Louise. “Representations of Same-sex Love in Public History.” PhD diss., Kingston University, 2015.
Hekma, Gert. De roze rand van donker Amsterdam: De opkomst van een homoseksuele kroegcultuur 1930-1970. Amsterdam: Van Gennep Amsterdam, 1992.
Hoonaard, Lonneke van den. “Queering the Collections: seksuele en genderdiversiteit in erfgoed.” Vakblad voor informatieprofessionals 4 (2015): 16 - 19.
Hunt, Elle. “LGBT community anger over YouTube restrictions which make their videos invisible.” The Guardian, 20 March 2017. www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/ mar/20/lgbt-community-anger-over-youtube-restrictions-which-make-their-videos- invisible.
Jane, Calamity. Copies of Calamity Jane’s Diary and Letters: Taken from the Originals Now on Exhibit at the Western Trails Museum, Billings, Montana. Billings, Montana: Western Trails Museum, 1949.
Keuzenkamp, Saskia, and Jantine van Lisdonk. Niet te ver uit de kast: ervaringen van homo- en biseksuelen in Nederland. Den Haag: Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau, 2012.
Kim, Jin. “The Institutionalization of YouTube: From User-generated Content to Professionally Generated Content.” Media, Culture & Society 34, no. 1 (2012): 53-67.
Kirste, Lynne. “Collective Effort: Archiving LGBT Moving Images.” Cinema Journal 46, no. 3 (2007): 134-40.
Knoop, Riemer, and Lonneke van den Hoonaard, eds. Queering the Collections: tips & tricks voor het nog zichtbaarder maken van gender- & seksuele diversiteit in musea en collecties. Hardinxveld-Giessendam: Tuijtel, 2016.
69 Kuypers, Valentine. “Webvideo’s archiveren bij Beeld en Geluid.” Hilversum: Sound and Vision, 2016.
Collection Policy Sound and Vision, edited by Mieke Lauwers. Translated by Beth Delaney. Hilversum: Beeld en Geluid, 2013.
Lerner, Gerda. “Why History Matters.” In Why History Matters, 199-211. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Levin, Amy, ed. Gender, Sexuality and Museum: A Routledge Reader. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2010. EBSCOhost.
Mankiewicz, Joseph L., dir. All About Eve. 1950; Los Angeles, LA: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 1999. DVD.
Mathieu, David. “Users’ Encounter with Normative Discourses on Facebook: A Three- Pronged Analysis of User Agency as Power Structure, Nexus, and Reception.” Social Media + Society 2, no. 4 (Oct-Dec 2016): 1–11.
Mattson, Rachel. “Can We Center An Ethics of Care in Audiovisual Archival Practice?” XFR Collective, December 6, 2016. https://xfrcollective.wordpress.com/2016/12/02/can- we-center-an-ethic-of-care-in-audiovisual-archival-practice/.
Mepschen, Paul, Jan Willem Duyvendak, and Evelien H. Tonkens. “Sexual Politics, Orientalism and Multicultural Citizenship in the Netherlands.” Sociology 44 (October 2010): 962-979.
Mol, Annemarie, and Peter van Lieshout. Ziek is het woord niet: Medicalisering, normalisering en de veranderende taal van huisartsengeneeskunde en geestelijke gezondheidszorg, 1945-1985. Amsterdam University Press: Amsterdam, 2008.
Morris, Bonnie. “History of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Social Movements.” American Psyhological Association, accessed October 31, 2017. http://www.apa. org/pi/lgbt/resources/history.aspx.
70
Mwangi, Evan. “Queer Agency in Kenya’s Digital Media.” African Studies Review 57, no. 2 (2014): 93-113.
Newman, Laine Zisman. “Absent, Invisible, and Incoherent: Archiving Queer Women’s Performance Futurities.” Canadian Theatre Review 163 (Summer 2015): 19-24.
Parry, Manon, and Jasmijn van Houten. “Exceptional or Excluded: Women’s History in the Netherlands.” In Feminism and Museums: Intervention, Disruption, Change. MuseumsEtc, forthcoming Spring 2018.
Peters, Jeremy W. “The Decline and Fall of the ‘H’ Word.” New York Times, March 21, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/fashion/gays-lesbians-the-term-homo sexual.html?_r=0.
Pietrobruno, Sheenagh. “YouTube and the Social Archiving of Intangible Heritage.” New Media & Society 15, no. 8 (2013): 1259 - 1276.
Puente, Sonia Núñez, Diana Fernández Romero and Rainer Rubira García. “Online Activism and Subject Construction of the Victim of Gender-based Violence on Spanish YouTube Channels: Multimodal Analysis and Performativity.” European Journal of Women’s Studies 22, no. 3 (2015): 319–333.
Rafelson, Bob, dir. Black Widow. 1987; Los Angeles, LA: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2004. DVD.
Rao, Nina. “Representation and Ethics in Moving Image Archives.” The Moving Image 10, no. 2 (2010): 104-123.
Rappard, Marin. “Drageronderzoek: Video en audio bij het Stadsarchief.” Master’s Internship Research, University of Amsterdam, 2016.
Roethof, Mildred, dir. Allemaal Lesbisch. 2011; Amsterdam: Cinemien, 2012. DVD.
71 Rosario, Margeret, Eric Schrimshaw, Joyce Hunter, and Lisa Braun. “Sexual Identity Development Among Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youths: Consistency and Change Over Time.” Journal of Sex Research 43, no. 1 (February 2006): 46–58.
Russo, Vito. The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies. New York: HarperCollins, 1987.
Schuurman, Ellen. “Between Tolerance and Acceptance: Homosexuality on Television in the Netherlands, 1980-2013.” Bachelor’s thesis, University of Amsterdam, 2014.
Schwartz, Joan, and Terry Cook. “Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory.” Archival Science 2, no. 1-2 (2002): 1-19.
Sleutjes, Martien. “Eén Jurk Zegt Meer Dan Duizend Woorden: de Invloed van de Rooie Flikkers (1975-1980).” IHLIA LGBT Heritage. Accessed October 24, 2017. https://indd.adobe.com/view/5bbfed70-2332-4775-8cef-eb6ad2a3088a.
Stein, Marc. “Canonizing Homophile Sexual Respectability: Archives, History, and Memory.” Radical History Review 2014, no. 120 (2014): 53-73.
Tung, Chia-Wei, and Marin Rappard. “Representation of Minority Communities on Archives’ Online Platforms.” Digital Heritage Master’s Course Paper, University of Amsterdam, 2016.
Van der Wel, Jack. “IHLIA - Making Information on LGBTIQ Issues in the Past and the Present Accessible and Visible.” In Serving LGBTIQ Library and Archives Users: Essays on Outreach, Service, Collections and Access, edited by Ellen Greenblatt, 158- 161. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2011.
Wekker, Gloria. White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016.
Zimmerman, Paula. “Morphing History into Histories: From Amateur Film to the Archive of the Future.” The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of
72 Moving Image Archivists 1, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 108-130.
73