‘Antigypsyism Does Not Exist’ and Other Assessments. Romani History by a Romani Historian Evaluated at the White Academy

Abstract

Romani Studies in Spain has yet to reach a satisfactory degree of development and faces many limitations within the Spanish Academy. To demonstrate this issue at hand, we will start with a special case: the challenge of writing the history of Roma as aRomani historian. Reconstructing Romani history and memory are fundamental tasks to encourage inclusion, but carrying outthese tasks is challenging due to the negative views of a non-Romani scientific society weighed down by a legacy of stereotypes, epistemological limits, and scientific racism. Roma naively have been scrutinised from a colonial point of view – where bothconscious and unconscious objectives knit together to excuse negative representations associated with Romani populations. Starting from the author’s recent experience as a Romani historian, this article aims to account for racism within the Spanish academy. It also intends to discuss benefits in the social and human sciences of situating Romani thought within a larger creation anddissemination of knowledge.