| Summary: | This essay relates the process of a preliminary work of identification in view of the creation of a Francophone sexological archive in a large European university. It is based on an autoethnographic approach that draws on the questions and personal steps that I have taken in order to deposit my own work archives and book collections on sexualities and gender. The autoethnographic approach thus puts into tension the questions and difficulties of the researcher, who is a personally involved actor, with those of potential archive holders and institutions that may receive such archives. My own questions open up new questions for the holders of archives and institutions and conversely, the questions of the holders and institutions allow me to better address my own issues. A telephone/zoom survey was conducted between September 2020 and May 2021 with 62 potential archive holders and 28 people, actors in the world of sexological and community archives, both public and private. The survey revealed that the majority of French-speaking sexologists do not have any major concerns or archival culture; that a large proportion of them have already destroyed the few archives they have accumulated during their career when they retire. For the few who have accumulated documents related to their profession, reflection on the archives allows them to reactivate their professional memory, to project themselves into the near future (writing work) or to inscribe their legacy in a project of eternity with the construction of a mausoleum in honor of their person and their work, ensured by their disciples. In all cases, the potential separation from the existing archives remains a subjectively and emotional difficult operation and certainly needs to be accompanied within the framework of a project that must remain based on the trust of the holders towards the institution that will receive their precious documents. In this perspective, the mechanisms put in place by the institutions that will receive these archives occupy a fundamental place in the constitution, collection and archiving of the documents and they must benefit from the confidence of the archive holders.
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