The Political Geography of the “Best Interest of the Child”

Abstract

The focus of this chapter is on children’s citizenship and the political geograph- ical landscape in which decisions about their best interest are made through state practices, social policies, and other forms of adult care. The best interest of the child represents one ofthe four principles that exists in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and spells out special protections for children’s rights in law and public policy, justified limitations on their freedom, and correlative obligations by adults to provide support and a conducive context for the full development of children (UNCRC 1990). The best interest of the child can be viewed as a trope by which dominant assumptions about children, their welfare, and societal obligations towards them are made. Very little has been written using a spatial perspective in defining the best interest of the child, yet children are defined, situated, actively interact with and have rights that are mitigated within specific geographic spaces. Over the course of this chapter, the insights of critical/political geographers including children’s geographers will be used to undertake a spatial analysis of the political landscape within which dominant assumptions about children’s rights as citizens, including their best interests, are articulated in Western (neo) welfare states. Theoretical discussion throughout this chapter will be situated in an analysis of a retrospective study undertaken by the author. Three aspects ofspatial analysis in relation to children’s citizenship and their best interests will be discussed. The first will be an exam- ination ofthe relationship between space and place. The second is the relationship between space and scale. The third aspect to be discussed is the relationship between children’s space and their identity