The main thesis of this paper is the assertion that, in contrast to the prevailing opinion about the decline or deep crisis of the intelligentsia, it is precisely this social group—and especially its elite—that is the dominant actor in social life. This thesis emerges from an analysis of the role of the intelligentsia, using ‘longue durée’ categories and also the broader international perspective of ‘world system theory’, in which Poland is assigned to the (semi)-periphery. Elements of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory, particularly the idea of cultural capital and the field of power, are an important theoretical poin in the author’s argument. In this view, the structurally privileged position of the intelligentsia in Poland is understood as an aspect of the specific configuration of the Polish field of power, in which—at least since the end of the First World War—cultural capital turns out to be the strongest and most stable dimension in the creation and reproduction of elite social positions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the mechanisms of classification and discursive representation of the poor and their everyday life, that result in dehumanization and orientalization of their image. Research data (press articles) was analyzed in the framework of theories such as the Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic power, post-colonial studies and discourse theory. The representation of everyday life was analyzed using the theory of real and symbolic localization. The use of the abovementioned theories enabled the author to describe the processes in which the poor are discursively reconstructed as Others. The identity of the “Other” is (falsely) attributed to the poor by localizing them, within the constructed representations of the places they inhabit