Growing up in Nso
Changes and continuities in children's relational networks during the first three years of life
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2263927 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Bettina Lamm (0000-0001-5858-6137), Wiebke Johanna Schmidt (0000-0003-0995-2772), Melody Ngaidzeyuf Ndzenyuiy, Melody Ndzenyuiy (0009-0008-5920-4944, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), H Keller (0009-0003-6216-1467, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 51 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 27-46 |
| Publication date | 2023-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Ethos (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0091-2131 • E-ISSN: 1548-1352 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/etho.12376 |
| OpenAlex | W4318618352 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 48 |
It is an undisputed fact among attachment researchers that children need stability and continuity in their caregiving environment for optimal developmental outcomes. However, anthropological studies show that informal and often temporally limited kinship-based foster care, including changes of children's primary caregivers, is widespread in some cultural contexts and considered normative and thus beneficial for children. Based on ethnographic interviews with Nso families in northwestern Cameroon, we analyzed the dynamics of caregiving arrangements and relational networks during infancy and early childhood. Exploring household compositions, caregiving responsibilities, children's preferred caregivers, and foster care arrangements revealed multiple caregiver networks, with the importance of the mother decreasing and the importance of alloparents and peers increasing as the children grow older. Also, families have fluid boundaries, with about one-third of the children changing households in the first three years of life. The Nso children's experiences reflect a relational cultural model of infant care as a cooperative task and a communal conception of attachment. The results are discussed in relation to attachment theory's claims about universal patterns of development
Developmental psychology · Ethnography · Kinship · Normative · Political science · Sociology · Anthropology · Child Welfare and Adoption · Children's Rights and Participation · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare · Psychology · Social Psychology
Transactions in Kinship
Intimate Fathers
Human Development in Cultural Context
Cross-Cultural Approaches to Adoption
Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse
Culture and Customs of Cameroon
Intergenerational Ties in Context
Child fosterage in the United States
Development in the First Years of Life
Behavioral problems following reunification of children in long-term foster care
Handbook of attachment
Development in context
The Efe forager infant and toddler's pattern of social relationships
My Brother's Keeper
Children's Schooling in sub-Saharan Africa
Child Fosterage in West Africa
The Architecture of Cosleeping among Wage-Earning and Subsistence Farming Cameroonian Nso Families
A Child has Many Mothers
Ecocultural Effects on Early Infant Care
Multiple Caretaking of Efe (Pygmy) Infants
The Role of Motor Stimulation in Parental Ethnotheories
Young Children's Social Networks in an Informal Urban Settlement in Kenya
Attachment as a Collective Resource
Cultural Differences in Stranger-Child Interactions
The Cultural Socialization of Emotion Regulation During Infancy
Cultural Models, Socialization Goals, and Parenting Ethnotheories
Raised by Another Mother
Apprehending Volition in Early Socialization
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |