Imagine that for an institutional barometer you're asked, "How do you see white people compared to the rest of society: more conflicting/more honest/more working-class/more supportive?" Would it be exceptional? On the occasion of the International Day against Racism and Xenophobia, 21 March, we wish to question such a deep-rooted tendency in sociological research: to empower the social majorities to judge excluded social groups.

Ikuspegi, the Basque Immigration Observatory, annually carries out a barometer on perceptions and attitudes regarding the population of foreign origin, presenting in January 2023 its first equivalent on the Roma People. So our first reaction was rewarding because we need up-to-date data on the structural violence that we live in and that can be valid for the design of public policies. On the contrary, by thoroughly reading the Measure 2022 report, the approach squeezed us and, moreover, we feel in our bowels that some questions make us re-victimize.

We are not the first to make a critical analysis of Ikuspegi's methodology. Specifically, the UPV/EHU sociologist Jokin Azpiazu Carballo collaborated with the barometer on the LGTBI population Neur2021 and expressed our similar concern in the Hedatu monograph of Ikuspegi. Firstly, it questioned the framework of integration and tolerance, i.e. the barometer focuses attention on the levels of sympathy that citizens manifest instead of measuring the extent of structural violence. In other words, although 60% of the population say that they would have no problems hiring Roma or renting a home, according to the experience of our association almost 100% of Roma have problems accessing employment and housing.

Secondly, Azpiazu has pointed out the need to seek ways of compensating for the so-called "desirable trend", that is, that people's responses are adapted to political correctness and therefore do not serve to measure the real expansion of racist attitudes. A clear example of this is that, according to data from 2022, only 38% of Basques would avoid or deny their children moving to schools with many Roma students, although we know that the reality of school segregation is much more worrying in the Basque Country.

However, we have been particularly disturbed by groups of questions that promote judgments about our culture, our customs and our moral quality, even more so when we consider that only 30% claim to have Roma friends or acquaintances. More than the usual racist rumours (for example, whether we provoke crime or not), the phrases that put our childhood in the spotlight have caused us to stir up: "Gypsy pupils lower the educational level of schools" or "Gypsies do not go ahead because they teach their children inappropriate values".

Researchers argue in the report that "methodological strategy" is to ask citizens stereotypical ideas. On the contrary, the strategy seems harmful because it invites society to think of Ijito Herria as a homogeneous and antagonistic group with others, and because the repetition of stereotypes reinforces the negative and distorted imaginary. Account should be taken of the warning of the United Nations in its report Human Rights Based Data Approach: opinion polls conducted on citizens "should not lead to discrimination, prejudice or stereotypes to the detriment of certain population groups, or to reinforce existing ones".

In this sense, we share with Azpiazu the need to accompany the data with a responsible and complex interpretation. On the contrary, the Measure 2022 barometer does not contain any element (either in the questionnaire or in the report) to eliminate anti-Roma gender bias with a disturbing welcome: for example, three out of four respondents say that Roma are more rebellious than the rest of the population and that our culture limits the educational and labour development of Roma women.

On the other hand, another block of the survey asks the public whether they have witnessed violence against the Roma (starting with the joke). It is noteworthy that the barometer gives citizens the role of the witness or the victim, but never of the aggressor. Wouldn't it be interesting to ask what they've done in the face of a racist attack, silence, move away, fight or become an accomplice?

Perhaps Ikuspegi could fine-tune his methodology if he had incorporated a Roma researcher into the group of collaborators such as Patricia Caro Maya (expert in gender anti-gypsy), Nicolás Jiménez (sociologist), Araceli Cañada Ortega (promoter of the first university course in Gypsy culture) or Helios F. Garcés (political analyst). However, he has elected two white academic men, thus reinforcing the prejudice that there are no qualified Roma advisors.

We are not seeking, under any circumstances, to oppose investigations that measure racist prejudices; we need to support our accusations of anti-Roma. What we ask is for the Academy and institutions to review the methodological bases of these investigations. To this end, we consider the learning of critical epistemologies (feminists, anti-colonial, participative...) as spaces of knowledge more appropriate to claim social justice and human diversity.

Finally, we would like to highlight two other worrying data from the Measure 2022 study: over 85% of respondents have denied the existence of anti-Roma racism in schools, commercial establishments or public administration services, and almost half blame us for our exclusion situation. So does it make sense to keep giving the speaker to ignorance and prejudice? In our view, the formula for recognising and combating anti-Roma must be another: to acquire and promote attitudes to learn from Roma knowledge and resistance. It seems to us an indispensable condition for building a society based on equality and respect for diversity.

Tamara Clavería Jiménez, AMUGE Association.

The following sociologists and political scientists have also signed: Tania Martínez Portugal, César Martínez, Francy Fonseca and Jule Goikoetxea.