Choosing an IB Anthropology fieldwork topic is not about finding an unusual culture. It is about identifying an accessible setting where you can investigate social relationships, practices, meanings, or power through appropriate evidence. A strong topic combines a specific group or place, an anthropological concept, ethical access, and methods you can realistically complete.
Your plan must also fit your course level. SL limited fieldwork and the more extensive HL fieldwork investigation involve different expectations, so they should not be planned as identical projects.
Understand what IB Anthropology fieldwork assesses
Social and cultural anthropology examines how people create meaning, organize relationships, express identity, and negotiate power. Fieldwork allows you to practise anthropological inquiry rather than merely summarize a social issue.
The official IB Social and Cultural Anthropology subject brief emphasizes participant observation, empirical investigation, research methods, ethics, interpretation, and awareness of the observer's position. Your topic must therefore allow you to study social behaviour in context.
“Social media” is too broad. “How members of a school club use a group chat to establish belonging and distribute responsibilities” identifies a group, practice, setting, and anthropological focus.
SL and HL planning
The published assessment model distinguishes:
- SL: limited fieldwork beginning with observation, followed by methodological and conceptual extension, further data collection, analysis, and critical reflection.
- HL: a larger investigation involving a proposal, fieldwork, a research report, and reflection.
- Both levels: appropriate methods, ethical awareness, interpretation, and consideration of the researcher's position.
The internal assessment is weighted at 20% for SL and 25% for HL in the published brief. Recommended teaching time is 30 hours at SL and 60 hours at HL, although schools organize their own schedules. Always follow your teacher's instructions and check the official IB Anthropology course page for published course information.
Begin with an accessible setting
Students often begin with an abstract theme such as identity, religion, gender, or technology. This usually produces an unmanageably broad question. Start with a place or group you can access repeatedly, then identify the social patterns occurring there.
Possible settings include:
- A school club, sports team, ensemble, or student committee
- A library, cafe, market, community centre, or place of worship
- A volunteering or neighbourhood organization
- A hobby group, gaming community, or moderated online space
- A recurring school event, lunchtime area, or classroom activity
Access requires more than proximity. You need permission, opportunities to observe, willing participants where interviews are planned, and the ability to return if initial data are incomplete.
Familiarity can help you notice subtle routines, but it also shapes interpretation. Studying your own team may improve rapport while making its hierarchies appear normal. Discussing this influence demonstrates reflexivity, meaning critical examination of how your identity and position affect the research.
Connect the setting to an anthropological concept
A field site alone is not an Anthropology IA topic. Select a conceptual lens that explains why observed actions, language, relationships, spaces, or objects matter.
Relevant concepts include belief and knowledge, change, culture, identity, materiality, power, social relations, society, and symbolism. A simple planning sequence is:
- Identify an accessible setting.
- List repeated practices or interactions.
- Choose a concept that could explain them.
- Decide what evidence is available.
- Form a focused question.
For example, students may repeatedly claim particular tables in a common area. You could investigate this through belonging, identity, power, or symbolism. Each concept directs attention toward different evidence and interpretations.
Practical Anthropology IA topic approaches
These examples are starting points and must be adapted to your access, level, and teacher's requirements.
| Setting | Possible anthropological focus | Suitable methods |
|---|---|---|
| School club | How rituals and language create belonging | Observation, participation, interviews |
| Sports team | How authority is negotiated during training | Participant observation, interviews, spatial mapping |
| Library | How rules and space shape behaviour | Observation, field notes, interviews |
| Cafe or market | How exchanges build trust | Observation, interviews, movement mapping |
| Student committee | How decisions reveal formal and informal power | Observation, interviews, document analysis |
| Online hobby group | How roles and moderation shape identity | Digital observation, interviews, permitted post analysis |
Effective questions often ask how people create, negotiate, or express something. Examples include how club routines create belonging, how players negotiate authority, or how students use seating and objects to mark identity. A question is viable only if you can collect evidence capable of answering it.
Test feasibility before committing
Apply five tests before requesting approval:
- Access: Can you enter safely and legally, obtain permission, and return?
- Observability: Can you witness repeated interactions, routines, language, or uses of space?
- Conceptual depth: Can you interpret the evidence anthropologically rather than merely describe it?
- Method fit: Will observation, interviews, or another approved method answer the question?
- Resilience: Can the project continue if someone withdraws or an event is cancelled?
“What food do students buy?” is primarily descriptive. “How do food choices and sharing practices express belonging within a student group?” provides greater conceptual depth. Regular settings are usually safer choices than one-off events because they allow follow-up data collection.
Make ethics part of topic selection
Ethics should determine what you investigate, not appear as an afterthought. Participants' safety, dignity, privacy, and voluntary participation take priority over collecting interesting material.
Discuss consent and approval procedures with your teacher before collecting data. Participants should understand the research purpose and methods, while identifying information must be protected unless appropriate permission is obtained. Store data securely and use it only for the approved investigation.
Research involving minors or vulnerable people may require additional school and parental or guardian permission. Friendship does not equal consent. Avoid covert observation, confidential medical information, illegal behaviour, trauma, serious conflict, or settings that create physical, social, or digital risk.
Online material requires equal care. A public username or post is not automatically ethical to reproduce. Consider users' expectations, anonymize evidence where required, and obtain teacher approval before recording or quoting content.
Match methods to the question
Choose methods for the evidence they produce:
- Observation records behaviour, language, routines, objects, and space.
- Participant observation examines social life while you join an activity.
- Interviews reveal participants' explanations and interpretations.
- Surveys identify wider patterns but often provide limited ethnographic depth.
- Visual or material methods examine spaces, images, clothing, objects, or performances, subject to consent.
HL students should combine complementary methods. Observation might show who speaks during meetings, while interviews reveal how participants interpret silence or authority. At SL, the second method should clearly extend the initial observation and chosen concept.
Avoid common topic-selection mistakes
Do not select a broad social issue instead of a bounded field site. Avoid questions designed to prove a predetermined claim, since fieldwork should remain open to contradictions and participants' perspectives. Familiar participants can improve access, but existing relationships may influence what people disclose and what you notice.
More data are not automatically better. Several detailed interviews combined with sustained observation may be more useful than numerous superficial responses. Select the evidence you can analyse meaningfully within the assessment limits.
Final checklist and conclusion
Before approval, confirm that your setting is repeatedly accessible, your question addresses a social or cultural practice, and at least one anthropological concept fits clearly. Your methods must answer the question, ethical safeguards must be manageable, and your role should support meaningful reflexive analysis. Keep a backup plan and obtain teacher approval for the site, question, methods, and consent arrangements.
A strong topic prioritizes feasibility over spectacle. RevisionDojo's Anthropology coursework exemplars can help you examine focus and reflection without copying a topic. You can also use the Anthropology subject resources, IA guides, SL IA feedback tool, and Jojo AI to review your concepts and evidence.