Museums, museology and diversity

a reflection on gender from the social perspective of Information Science

Abstract

This study discusses gender relations in museology in light of documentary memory through the historical contextualization of women’s participation in the processes of training, practice, and management in museums in Brazil. Within this context, it analyzes the presence of women in the chairmanship of committees linked to the International Council of Museums, an institution of global importance with a clear influence on Brazilian museology. Based on Information Science, it articulates the notions of document, institutionality, and power from Bernd Frohmann. With contributions from colonial gender studies, especially María Lugones and Oyèrónkẹ Oyěwùmí, and Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic power, it is characterized as descriptive, applied research, with a documentary procedure and a quantitative-qualitative approach. Focusing on the ethical, political, and epistemological challenges arising from coloniality that affect informational praxis, it mobilizes two contexts of analysis: a) the profile of the presidency of the international committees of the International Council of Museums and b) information management on the respective official websites, in order to operationalize the aforementioned concepts. The empirical field consisted of 35 committees, 22 of which have a complete management history since the institution's creation. The data obtained point to a history of greater male presence and gradual gender parity since the 1990s. As for the documentary memory, there are important gaps in the reconstruction and publicizing of the female presence in Museology.