IB Diploma Programme Social and Cultural Anthropology HL (first assessment 2019; 2017 guide). This topic equips ENGAGING WITH ETHNOGRAPHY, examined in Paper 2 (45% HL): the nine AREAS OF INQUIRY in three groups (at HL one from each group plus a fourth from any group), read as ethnographic material and compared through the key concepts. Section A connects a key concept, an area of inquiry and a real-world issue; section B answers questions from further areas. This handout teaches the areas, the ethnographic read and the comparison. All worked examples are original classroom vignettes, not ethnographic publications.

Must-know for engaging with ethnography:

The syllabus's areas of inquiry 探究领域 come in three groups, and the course takes one from each (plus a fourth from any group at HL): GROUP 1 (classifying the world; health, illness and healing; the body), GROUP 2 (belonging 归属; communication, expression and technology; movement, time and space), GROUP 3 (conflict; development; production, exchange and consumption). An area is a field of social life, not a place: the body can be studied in a school, a clinic or a gym.

Worked vignette. Two areas carried through the school: the morning greeting ritual (belonging, group 2) and the tuck-shop barter economy (production, exchange and consumption, group 3).

In this course ethnographic material 民族志材料 is read with four questions: the VIEWPOINT of the anthropologist (who watched, from where), the research METHODS (how long, how close), the CONCEPTS it illuminates, and its ETHICS (consent, anonymity, harm). The discipline's demand: the material is grounded (a described scene, not a generalization about a whole society), and the read names what the material can and cannot show.

Worked vignette, continued. The greeting ritual, read: viewpoint (a participant for one term), methods (daily observation plus twelve interviews), concepts (belonging through ritual; identity through greeting-form choice), ethics (names changed, the school's consent).

A second read, the barter material. Viewpoint: a participant for two weeks in the tuck shop; methods: daily observation plus a count of exchanges; concepts: production, exchange and consumption, with power (the regular's discount as priced favour); ethics: purchases anonymised, the shop's students consenting. Same four questions, a different area of inquiry: the read generalises because its questions do.

Paper 2 asks for connection: section A links a key concept, an area of inquiry and a REAL-WORLD issue (inequality, violence, poverty, mobility, environment); section B answers from the other areas studied. The craft: comparison 比较研究 across the areas through shared concepts: the greeting and the barter both distribute recognition (belonging and power), one through ritual form, the other through price and favour.

Worked vignette, concluded. An inequality question answered from the two areas: the greeting includes and excludes by form (who may use the shorthand greeting); the barter prices the same students differently (the regular's discount); same concept, two mechanisms, both evidenced from the vignettes.

• The three groups and their areas; one from each (plus a fourth at HL) (groups).

• Group 1, group 2 and group 3 areas named on demand (group 1-3).

• Material read by viewpoint, methods, concepts, ethics; grounded (read).

• Section A's triangle (concept, area, real-world issue) connected (worked).

• The worked greeting-and-barter comparison understood (worked). Boundary notes: the examiner must see the discipline: concepts named, ethnographic evidence grounded, the observer positioned. All worked examples are original classroom vignettes, not ethnographic publications.