LGBTQ+ collecting institutions: the culture of strategic management, motivation and professionalization

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper presents findings from an Australian Research Council Linkage Project investigating LGBTQ+ memory, migration and collecting institution practices. It analyses the ways in which minority LGBTQ+ collecting institutions (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) have professionalized in recent decades and adopted the use of strategic management documents such as strategic plans, mission statements and annual reports. Analysing documents from the 48 most prominent LGBTQ+ collecting institutions around the world, this article explores the ways in which such documents present narratives about the motivation and justification for minority collecting institutions, and how they represent themselves as professional rather than grassroots or activist organizations. Three core motivations emerged from the study: the preservation and celebration of the past, sustaining an ‘ethnic minority’ model of LGBTQ+ community through engagement in the present and aspiration for social change and justice for the future. The paper unpacks the underlying discourses to provide a perspective on the role of these cultural institutions in minority communities.