The uses of ‘the best interest of the child’ in the administration, governance and politics of Ecuadorian childhoods

Abstract

The ‘best interest of the child’ is one of the basic notions of the Convention of the rights of the child. The main objective in this paper is to trace the uses of the ‘best interest’ notion and the normative rationale it adheres to, within administrative, governing and political efforts in Ecuador. My intention is to explicate and discuss why the considerable attention the rights principles receive at the levels of normative production and policy regulation, fails at the level of implementation. Through the discussion I seek to evidence why the Ecuadorian child welfare field is characterized by inadequate modes of operationalizing the ‘best interest’ principles in contexts of “non-ideal” childhoods.