In the name of the Father, the Son and the Gymnastic Spirit Corporal practices, masculinities and religiosity in the Browsers of Don Bosco in the Argentina of principles of XX century

Abstract

The salesians schools settled in Argentina in the end of the XIX century and they have been growing until the present time. Among their educational proposals the corporal question was constituted in a central problem. The government of the body and, especially, the construction of certain type of masculinity was one of the central axes of its proposal. To build masculine and virile bodies, the Explorers of Don Bosco were “invented” in 1915. This experience (gymnastics, marches, walks, trips, etc.) joined poor children and youths with the purpose of modeling their bodies and their souls by a construction of a moral and kinetic specific universe. Keeping in mind the above-mentioned, the following article investigates the ways and the reasons why the Explorers of Don Bosco movement gendered the children bodies converting them in “true” men and against who fight in its “masculine crusade”. The sources to analyze are the documents, circular, texts and books used to form the Explorers of Don Bosco in Argentina.