Child Protection as Social Problem in the Americas: Challenges in the Construction of a Field of Study

Abstract

In this article I provide some critical reflections on a specific doctoral research experience, the objective of which has been to understand how child protection came to be defined as a social problem in the Americas, focusing on the Inter-American Children’s Institute as a case study. This article has two main aims. First, by expanding on the theoretical and methodological decisions which led to the dissertation’s research questions, objectives, and corpus, this paper represents an attempt to illuminate the progressive nature of research, which usually we can see only in its final and complete stage. Secondly, by reassessing the key terms and categories of analysis deployed in the study of child protection in the Americas, this article seeks to render these tools available for other scholars interested in the research and construction of social problems.