LGBT Archival Practices: the Study of NX Magazine and the Gay Worlds of the 1990s (Buenos Aires, Argentina)

Abstract

This paper aims to reflect on the possibilities of construction of LGBT archives based on the notion of archival practices, since the study of the NX Magazines, which functioned as stabilizers of the gay worlds of the 1990s in Argentina. We understand archival practices as a multiplicity of actions related to the storage of heterogeneous documents (brochures, pornographic magazines, graphics, letters, photographs, among others) that may eventually constitute an archive, in this case, LGBT. We focus on three moments of these archival practices. The first is related to how we arrive at the object of study from the affective circulation of some magazine´s issues. The second is related to the way of institutionalizing an archive that pretends to be systematic. The third moment reconstructs the archival practices of former readers of the magazine whom we interviewed as part of our project. In conclusion, we reflect on the centrality of archives in stabilizing gay worlds.