1959: (Comhaire-Sylvain Calls for Multi- and Interdisciplinary Approach — Comhaire-Sylvain Arguing for a Multi- and Interdisciplinary Approach That Would Be …

1959: (Comhaire-Sylvain Calls for Multi- and Interdisciplinary Approach — Comhaire-Sylvain Arguing for a Multi- and Interdisciplinary Approach That Would Be “Neither Easily Accessible Nor Could the Approaches Be Used to the Advantage of Persons Lacking Experience in the Country Since the Sources Are Widely Scattered and Uncoordinated and the Data Is Incomplete” — This Being Necessary Because “the Figures Show Clearly That in Urban Haiti the Stratification Is Far Less Simple Than That Indicated by Previous Authors,” Comhaire-Sylvain Poking Holes at Thick Descriptions That “Pretended to See Everything and Therefore Sometimes Saw Less Than They Could”): Comhaire-Sylvain argued for a multi- and interdisciplinary approach that would be neither easily accessible, nor could the approaches be used to the advantage of persons lacking experience in the country, since the sources were widely scattered and uncoordinated, and the data was incomplete. This alternative approach was necessary because, as she explained, the figures showed clearly that in urban Haiti the stratification was far less simple than that indicated by previous authors. Comhaire-Sylvain poked holes at the thick descriptions of previous research that, as anthropologist John Jackson might say, pretended to see everything and therefore sometimes saw less than it could — her critique was aimed at Herskovits, Hurston, Métraux, and Mintz without naming them, a scholarly shiv delivered with impersonal precision.