Anthropological research around the world has documented informal, kinship‐based foster care cross‐culturally. In this article, I review some of the anthropological findings about the positive and negative characteristics of such arrangements. Research suggests that children are more likely to benefit from informal kinship‐based fostering in cultural contexts where fostering expands the pool of relatives rather than substituting one parent for another, fostering is expected to provide children with positive opportunities for learning and development, or children are granted some autonomy or decision‐making power. However, informal kinship‐based fostering seems to place children at risk in cultural contexts where the process of children's attachment to caregivers resembles the Western model of child development, communities are highly stratified along socioeconomic lines, or exploiting children is permitted. I conclude the article by discussing implications for policy and research.

中文翻译：

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在世界范围内基于非正式亲属关系的寄养：人类学发现。

全世界的人类学研究已经跨文化地记录了基于亲属关系的非正式寄养服务。在本文中，我回顾了有关这种安排的积极和消极特征的一些人类学发现。研究表明，在文化背景下，儿童更可能会从基于非正式亲属关系的寄养中受益，在这种情况下，寄养扩大了亲戚的数量，而不是用一位父母代替另一位父母，寄养有望为孩子提供学习和发展的积极机会，或者授予一定的自治权或决策权。但是，基于非正式亲属关系的寄养似乎使儿童处于文化背景中，在这种背景下，儿童对照顾者的依恋过程类似于西方的儿童发展模式，社区沿社会经济高度分层，或者允许剥削儿童。在结束本文时，我将讨论对政策和研究的意义。