IB Social and Cultural Anthropology Past Papers & Drilling (Paper 1): Unseen Text and Big-Question Answers

Question 1

(a) 2 marks: Materiality is the way objects, artefacts and physical conditions take part in producing social relations and meaning – things are not a backdrop but carriers and media of relationships.
(b) 2 marks: An ice machine is equipment, but here it is shared by eight stallholders, so its repair, cleaning and order of use need a collective arrangement; the ninth place added to the roster turns the machine from a tool into common property that has to be looked after, and creates a further fixed line of relationship between the stallholders.

Question 2

6 marks = three scoring points, 2 marks each
(1) Relationship precedes transaction: the leftover food is not a market exchange but is returned as someone watching the stall the next morning, so the form of the return is set by the closeness of the relationship rather than by a price. (2) Relationships are kept alive by records: the notebook turns a favour into an entry, showing that reciprocity needs a trace that can be checked – the account is not the opposite of the relationship but the technique by which it lasts. (3) Relationships have boundaries: these arrangements appear only among the stallholders; the new platform agents are outside the network, and the same amount of money would not work with them, so reciprocity depends on who counts as an insider.
For the full 6 marks, link the three points into one argument: relationships define obligations, obligations need records, and records draw the boundary.

Question 3

10 marks = level descriptors (0 / 1-3 / 4-6 / 7-10 bands)
For the top band, four moves are required:
(1) Define the concept rather than using it as a label – for example power as the capacity to shape the actions of others and their access to resources, distinguishing authority, coercion and persuasion. (2) Carry one concept through both cases. With power: in Material A it first appears in the argument over who decides the order, where seniority and the roster are only claims while what matters is Mr Ho’s ability to bring eight people to one table and rewrite the rule; the walkway and the platform agents then show an outside body moving power out of the neighbourhood through infrastructure and pricing. (3) Give one paragraph to similarity and one to difference: in both cases power attaches to something that can be handled (here the roster and the ice machine; in your own case, name your material), while the difference lies in whether that power is negotiated locally or imposed from outside. (4) Name and use theory – for instance reciprocity and the obligation to return, or a post-colonial critique of how outside agencies rewrite local classification. Naming a theorist without using the idea scores nothing.
Conclude by returning to the concept and stating how the comparison has modified your understanding of it.

Question 4

10 marks = level descriptors
(1) Method: Material A uses eleven months of participant observation, resting on long-term presence that turns co-existence into everyday knowledge; state what that buys that short interviews or a questionnaire do not – for example rules that are never spoken, such as the order in which the canopy is hung. (2) Position and reflexivity: the answer must handle the researcher’s position – did the stallholders know they were being observed, did the researcher share the work, and did the notebook and the phone videos become part of the data? Noting that the researcher’s presence itself changed the arrangement reaches the top band. (3) Contrast with another approach: bring in a study you know (for example reconstructing past practice from archives and historical documents, or testing kinship patterns with quantitative data) and compare on the nature of the evidence, how far it can be checked, and its ethical cost. (4) Concept and theory must do work: use reflexivity and the insider/outsider distinction to explain the difference rather than as labels.
Conclude that no single approach is better for every question: the choice follows from the research question and the time available.

Question 5

10 marks = level descriptors; the examiner looks for four things
(1) Answer the question: do not merely list kinds of social life – take a position, for example that living in society means being continuously recognised by others as a certain kind of person and thereby carrying obligations and holding claims. (2) Use two ethnographies and Material A together: for each, state the author, the people studied and the period, and say which part of your position it supports (for instance a study of market trade showing how obligations arise from exchange, and material on ritual showing how status is publicly confirmed). (3) Advance the argument with concepts: use at least three key concepts (such as social relations, symbolism and power) and explain how they relate, instead of defining each in turn. (4) Handle counter-evidence: the stallholders in Material A who refused to sign show that a society is not one agreed whole; noting that consensus and conflict co-exist, and explaining why we can still speak of living together, reaches the highest band.
Conclude by answering the wording of the question: the answer depends on whether we understand society as a boundary, a network of obligations, or an ongoing negotiation.

Question 1

10 marks = level descriptors
(1) Informed consent: participants must understand the purpose, the use of the data and the likely consequences, and must be free to withdraw; filming in secret and publishing recognisable images means consent can only be claimed afterwards, which is no consent at all. (2) Minimising harm and confidentiality: anonymity and de-identification are the default; in a small community a name badge, a face or the position of a stall is enough to make someone identifiable, so protection has to be designed in at the point of collection. (3) Avoiding improper inducement: paying for an interview can make it hard for participants to refuse or to weigh the risk, particularly where the sum means something to them. (4) The power difference between researcher and researched: who decides what may be recorded and published, and who carries the consequences of exposure – ethics requires that asymmetry to be written into the research design. (5) Honesty and responsibility to the academic community: data must not be altered for effect, the work of others must be attributed, and conclusions and limitations must be presented together. Noting that both stimuli involve risk of exposure, while the size of that risk depends on who holds the power to publish, reaches the highest band.