Impasse of the Angels: Scenes from a Moroccan Space of Memory

by Stefania Pandolfo

The image of the ethnographer in the field who observes his or her subjects from a distance while copiously taking notes has given way in recent years to a more critical and engaged form of anthropology. Composed as a polyphonic dialogue of texts, Stefania Pandolfo's Impasse of the Angels takes this engagement to its limit by presenting the relationship between observer and observed as one of interacting equals and mutually constituting interlocuters.

Impasse of the Angels explores what it means to be a subject in the historical and poetic imagination of a southern Moroccan society. Passionate and lyrical, ironic and tragic, the book listens to dissonant, often idiosyncratic voices—poetic texts, legends, social spaces, folktales, conversations—which elaborate in their own ways the fractures, wounds, and contradictions of the Maghribî postcolonial present. Moving from concrete details in a traditional ethnographic sense to a creative, experiential literary style, Impasse of the Angels is a tale of life and death compellingly addressing readers from anthropology, literature, philosophy, postcolonial criticism, and Middle Eastern studies.

Genres: Anthropology

397 pages, Paperback

First published February 3, 1998

Reviews

[Tony Gualtieri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a radical attempt at writing an immersive anthropology where the observer and the observed interact as equals. It takes a while to "get" what the author is trying to do. I found myself rereading the first thirty or forty pages once I had a better idea of how the text functioned. It's sometimes unclear who is speaking and what the relationship exists between the various speakers, but I think that's intentional. The payoff for all this effort is a deep understanding of how memory sustains this post-colonial society.

The text is in three main sections: one dealing with geography, one with death, and one with poetry. There are extensive and necessary endnotes, and the reader will spend a great deal of time flipping to the back of the book to gain clarity. I can see why this information was segregated from the main text, but it does make for a disjointed experience.

[Eli Jacobs · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is great. anyone interested in ethnography should read it.

i don't want to impose a particular, necessary reading of this book on anyone, but it seems that there's a very strong correlation between ethnographic content and ethnographic method. in other words, pandolfo uses things (accounts of dreams, poems, etc.) arising from moroccan society to explain the relation of the ethnographer to her object of study. so, the book is simultaneously a study of morocco and a study of the discipline of ethnography.