The Multi-dimensions of Aporophobia

This paper offers the first analytical framework to tackle the concept of aporophobia (rejection of the poor), as introduced by Cortina's ground-breaking work. It can be considered a first step towards a fully-fledged theory of aporophobia. More specifically, i) it provides a conceptual analysis of the aporophobia phenomena, suggesting that there are three dimensions of aporophobia, namely, macro, meso and micro aporophobia, ii) it introduces conceptual and measurement models to increase the theoretical density of the concept that add corresponding sub-dimensions and iii) it examines preliminary evidence of the existence of aporophobia at an aggregate level. In doing so, it introduces a new measure of aporophobia, such as the Global Aporophobia Index. The main message of this paper is clear: the non-poor are part of the (poverty) problem and therefore need to be part of its solution.