Elusive Poverty

In this introduction to the issue of Communications devoted to the different manifestations of poverty, we review various historical and social configurations in which such heterogeneous notion is embedded. Focusing on the Western countries, specifically Europe and the US, this article addresses the metamorphoses of the outlines and meanings of poverty. It reveals how the very notion fades and was replaced by those of citizen or worker, under the auspices of the Welfare State, to be subsequently revived in the three last decades. Our analysis highlights the cognitive, social, and political relevance of poverty to public policy. It is the linchpin of a transformation of the Welfare State in the neoliberal era. As such, it overshadows both the plurality of the social phenomenon itself and the social processes that produce it.