‘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 a
Romani historian. Reconstructing Romani history and memory are fundamental tasks to encourage inclusion, but carrying out
these 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 both
conscious 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 and
dissemination of knowledge.