Social Networks, Liberationist Catholicism and Repression in San Martin Neighborhood

Mendoza, 1959-1976

Abstract

During the '60s and '70s, in the San Martín neighborhood, a series of events and processes took place that would have profound repercussions on the Mendoza society of the time. Around the Jesuit priest José María “Macuca” Llorens many young people came together, who together with neighbors of the nascent working class neighborhood, starred in novel and disruptive experiences, which would cause alarm in the security forces. In this work, we aim to identify the main dense networks that were woven in the community space of the San Martín neighborhood, in order to analyze how they contributed to the identity processes experienced by students and neighbors, and what implications they had in the constitution of extensive social networks that contributed to the growing social and political mobilization of Mendoza during those years. It will also study how these networks were perceived by the armed and security forces, and how the figure of Llorens as a “generator of militancy” acquired a certain “dangerousness”, according to the vision of the perpetrators of state and parastatal terror.