Vol. 17 No. 33 (2026): Precarious dwelling. Everyday practices, caring relations, and meaning-making processes
Articles

Misery of Position and the Crisis of Possibility. New Forms of Poverty in Contemporary Democracies

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  • Anna Maria Paola Toti
Anna Maria Paola Toti
Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/smp-17125

Published 2026-08-04

Keywords

  • democratic crisis,
  • right to the city,
  • urban marginality,
  • positional poverty,
  • grey zones of poverty

How to Cite

Toti, A. M. P. (2026). Misery of Position and the Crisis of Possibility. New Forms of Poverty in Contemporary Democracies. SocietàMutamentoPolitica, 17(33), 13–22. https://doi.org/10.36253/smp-17125

Copyright (c) 2026 Anna Maria Paola Toti

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Marginality emerges as a multidimensional phenomenon that cannot be reduced solely to deprivations linked to the redistributive sphere, but is instead intertwined with a dense network of social issues, including processes of social disintegration, vulnerability, relational exclusion, and the erosion of solidarity. It is within this context that the concept of new urban poverty takes shape. The weakening of collective protection dispositifs, the restructuring of labour markets, and the growing individualization of risk have contributed to the formation of an intermediate social space, situated between inclusion and exclusion, in which heterogeneous forms of economic, social, and relational fragility accumulate. These configurations constitute the structural outcome of transformations induced by neoliberal capitalism. This contribution is situated within an operational theoretical framework that integrates the analysis of positional and relational poverty with the study of institutional processes involved in the production of marginality. Its aim is to analyze the expansion and complexity of new forms of poverty through a critical and conceptual re-reading of selected categories and models useful for interpreting these dynamics.

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