Stygmatyzacja społeczna jako strategia dyskursywna biedy i jej rola w procesie wykluczenia społecznego

The article offers an overview of literature on the subject (including sociological texts dealing with the concept of the welfare stigma), and also presents the author’s own reflections, referring to the problem of stigmatization and social exclusion of the poor. The article analyses concepts that explain the stigmatizing and humiliating impact of poverty such as: (i) Othering (treating someone as the Other); (ii) povertyism; and finally (iii) the welfare stigma. Theoretical analyses are supplemented by the results of the author’s own qualitative research on stigmatization of female social care recipients, which shed light on the rarely analyzed relative and symbolic aspects of poverty, such as shame, humiliation, feeling of exclusion, lower self-esteem, feeling of uselessness and lack of control over one’s life. This approach, hitherto rarely applied in Polish sociology, offers promising explanatory possibilities