Bianca Baggiarini

Bianca Baggiarini is a political sociologist and Lecturer in military studies at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at ANU. Her research and teaching practices are aimed at applying sociological theories and methods to the study of war. Bringing together interdisciplinary fields of international political sociology, critical military studies, and social science of technology studies, Bianca’s research attempts to better understand the changing character and quality of war and violence through an equal interest in both micro and macro scales and theoretical and empirical knowledge.

Bianca’s current research is on the social, political, and ethical impacts of autonomy and AI-enabled technologies in military and security contexts. She is examining the role of trust discourse in shaping debates about ethical military AI, the changing status of soldiers’ labour in the context of increasing autonomy, and the social meaning of technology demonstrations as it relates to communicating the ethical and legal potential of AI-enabled systems. Her forthcoming monograph, Governing Military Sacrifice, is one of the first books to connect the rise of drones and combat unmanning with military and security privatization and includes original interview data from both drone advocates and critics alike.

Bianca holds a PhD (2018) from York University in Toronto, an MA in sociology from Simon Fraser University, and a BA in political science from Simon Fraser University. From 2019 to 2021, she was a Lecturer at UNSW at the Australian Defence Force Academy.