Argentinos y católicos: La Capilla salesiana “Inmaculada Concepción” de San Carlos de Bariloche (1914-1932)

Abstract

This paper focuses on the conformation about the Immaculate Conception Chapel in San Carlos de Bariloche, founded in 1907, as a symbol of the Catholic origins of the town linked to a group of "characterised neighbours" who sought to construct themselves as an elite, distributing power, creating territoriality and constructing identity. For this reason, we will analyse this construction as a religious territory from different historical processes from the definitive settlement of the Salesians in 1914 until the death of a key figure in this processes: the businessman Primo Capraro (1932). From different acts of territorialisation and scales, we will analyse the chapel as a cultural artefact and management epicentre of an ecclesiastical territory. We propose for the analysis written documentary sources and conceptualisations of historical hermeneutics combined with the geography of religion, which are complemented with categories of social processes in the shaping of territorial agencies. We will pay special attention to the process from missionary post to Salesian parish, to the construction of the identity of Argentines and Catholics in the village from different social activities sustained from the parish and its consolidation with the "illustrious" visits and the interventions of the ecclesial agency in the civic celebrations.