Aporophobia

Aporophobia is aversion, fear, or rejection directed at people experiencing poverty or social exclusion. It can appear in individual attitudes, social practices, and public institutions.

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Poverty stigma: Negative beliefs and social judgments attached to being poor. It supplies the stereotypes through which poverty can trigger rejection.
Adela Cortina: A Spanish philosopher known for her work in ethics and for introducing the term aporophobia. She named and analyzed the rejection of people who have nothing to offer in exchange.
Xenophobia: Fear or hostility directed toward people perceived as foreign. Aporophobia targets poverty, even when the person rejected belongs to the majority group.
Criminalization of homelessness: The use of laws and enforcement to punish or restrict activities associated with homelessness. It can translate hostility toward visibly poor people into penalties and displacement.
Human dignity: The inherent worth of every person, independent of status, ability, or material resources. Aporophobia challenges dignity when it treats people’s poverty as grounds for lesser respect.
Social exclusion: The process by which people are prevented from participating fully in society. Aporophobia can deny people in poverty access to relationships, services, and public life.
Aporophobia (book): A 2017 book by Adela Cortina examining rejection of poor people and its social roots. It develops Cortina’s account of aporophobia beyond the term’s initial public use.
Classism: Prejudice or discrimination based on social class or perceived class position. Classism overlaps with aporophobia but can target people across the class hierarchy.
Anti-homeless architecture: Design choices that discourage sleeping, sitting, or gathering in public spaces. Hostility to poor people can be built into benches and other shared environments.
Gift economy: An economic system in which goods and services circulate through giving rather than direct payment. Cortina contrasts exchange-based belonging with the exclusion of those seen to offer nothing.