Sponsored by Voice of Roma, Paul Polansky undertook the task of visiting the Romani communities in Kosovo in the summer of 2001, both to update his original 1999 survey¹³ and to provide desperately needed transportation, aid, and assistance to Roma.

While there have been several recent studies of Roma in Eastern Europe, as well as of the ongoing crisis affecting ethnic minorities in Kosovo,¹⁴ Polansky's research is the first and only demographic study focused specifically on the Kosovo Roma -- crucially important, given the international community’s emphasis on rebuilding a multi-ethnic society in this region. Overcoming the majority of the overwhelming obstacles to gathering accurate and reliable information, Polansky succeeded in interviewing knowledgeable informants concerning the 267 villages and towns which had some recorded Romani population prior to the NATO intervention in March of 1999. Using the field data he gathered in the summers of 1999, 2000, and 2001, cross-referenced with the 1991 census, Polansky provided ground-breaking information, allowing Voice of Roma to gauge the continuing impact of the conflict in Kosovo on the Roma.

Polansky’s first survey, conducted between August and November 1999, included visits to all 29 districts (municipalities) in Kosovo. Both in the 1999 survey and in this 2001 study, Polansky was able to interview Romani community leaders, elders, and/or spokespersons in the majority of villages, towns, and cities where Roma had lived prior to the NATO intervention in Spring 1999. Romani communities in Kosovo were identified by word of mouth. Interviews were conducted with the use of a Romani translator/interpreter. Some of the informants had consistently kept a careful tally of the shifts in the Romani population since the NATO bombing ended in June 1999. These informants were able to identify: 1) the houses that had formerly been occupied by Roma; 2) how many of those had been partially or completely destroyed; and 3) how many of those have been re-occupied by ethnic groups other than Roma.

When it was not possible to visit a village or group of villages due to threats or known dangers (see below for further explanation), Polansky relied on a combination of 1991 census data and verbal reports by Romani leaders in nearby towns or villages. In these locations, knowledgeable Romani representatives estimated increases and subsequent decreases in Roma since the 1991 census. Information and data were also occasionally gathered from local Serbian or Albanian informants. Albanian children in some villages provided quite candid disclosures concerning often hidden or unacknowledged Romani families/ neighborhoods. Additional interviews were conducted with Roma who had left their village or neighborhood and were now living as displaced persons in camps within Kosovo, as well as in Serbia and Macedonia. Through this multi-layered approach, Polansky acquired data that is quite reliable and precise, under extremely difficult circumstances.

From the outset, Voice of Roma and Polansky recognized that this field work would be exploratory and in some ways problematic. To begin with, the two most recent government censuses reporting the Romani population in Kosovo contain gross inaccuracies; the first in 1981 was conducted under an Albanian-dominated government, while the second was conducted in 1991 under a Serbian-dominated government.