Attachment studies mostly follow the Western middle-class model in theory and methods. To demonstrate that the assessment of children's caregiving context is an often neglected, but crucial prerequisite for attachment studies, we (a) conducted a literature analysis of attachment research in non-Western contexts and (b) empirically investigated the caregiving arrangements and cultural concepts of attachment figures in three cultural groups in Costa Rica: rural Guanacaste, urban San José, and rural indigenous Bribri. All persons involved in caring for 65 infants (7-20 months) participated in the study, resulting in a total of 179 semistructured interviews. The samples showed differences in caregiving practices, with the urban sample resembling Western middle-class contexts emphasizing the maternal importance; the two rural samples showing extensive caregiving networks; however, differently composed. Moreover, the three samples revealed culturally specific concepts of potential attachment figures. The study emphasizes the need for culturally sensitive conceptual and methodological approaches in attachment research.

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According to attachment theory, feeding, including breastfeeding, plays only a marginal role in relationship formation. However, studies—especially in rural traditional non‐Western contexts—repeatedly demonstrate that feeding can be an important attachment mechanism. We interviewed 30 urban, middle‐class families with 6‐to‐19‐month‐old infants in the surrounding greater metropolitan area of San José, Costa Rica, to investigate if they consider feeding relevant for attachment formation. Qualitative content analysis revealed that breastfeeding is a key factor in specifying whether caregivers believed feeding to be relevant for attachment formation. The study found that breastfeeding families considered feeding relevant for attachment, and bottle‐feeding families associated feeding with mainly alimentary and no attachment‐related functions. Furthermore, breastfeeding seems to foster exclusive maternal attachment, while multiple feeding seems to foster multiple attachments. Consequently, the feeding network seems to regulate a child's attachment network in urban middle‐class families in San José. A triangulation of caregiver interviews, interviews with key informants, and member checking with key informants support the validity of the findings.

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.

This study examines the cultural concept of grandmothers as caregivers and potential attachment figures for their grandchildren in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. Specifically, we examined the influence of the grandmaternal co‐residence with grandchildren on their caregiving involvement and on the dyad's relationship formation. Semi‐structured interviews with 19 grandmothers of 14–28 months old infants were conducted. Findings revealed close grandmother–grandchild relationships and high grandmaternal involvement in child care, ranging from regular babysitting to functional parent roles. Co‐residing grandmothers shared most caregiving responsibilities with mothers and can represent important attachment figures for their grandchildren. Non‐co‐residing grandmothers were less involved and reported distributed responsibilities between grandmother and parents with clearly defined caregiving tasks and times. The results demonstrate the importance of the context when defining children's caregiving and attachment networks.