Didier Bigo is emeritus research professor of International Political Sociology at Sciences-Po Paris-CERI, France.
He is also part time professor at King’s College London, department of War studies.
He is also director of the Centre for study of conflicts, liberty and security (CECLS) and editor of the quarterly journal Cultures & Conflits published by l’Harmattan.
He is one of the co-editor of the newly PARISS (Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences) journal, Brill, 2019, as well as founder and previous co-editor with Rob Walker of the ISA journal International Political Sociology .
He is currently co-PI for France of the international ORA project GUARDINT : “Oversight and intelligence networks: Who guards the guardians?” 2019-2022. GUARDINT is the follow up of the ANR on surveillance after Snowden- UTIC. Previously he has been the responsible of the KCL-WP on the professionals of security of the FP7 SOURCE
His areas of interests are:
- International Political Sociology: transversal lines, reframing the study of International Relations
- Epistemology and modalities of observation of field of practices
- Sociogenesis of academic institutions and forms of knowledge
- Transdisciplinary Approaches to (in)security studies: topics
- Democratic boundaries and Data Politics
- Freedom, Mobility, Prevention and Surveillance in the Digital Age
- Sociology of Border controls, Biometrics identifiers and Databases interoperability
- Human Rights and Antiterrorist policies: exploring suspicion and exception
- Travelers, Migrants and Refugees: transversal biographies
These lines of research have been experimented through specific enquiries on the conditions of possibilities of freedom in contemporary societies and the practices they generate. At the limits of freedom, how are constructed and articulated the dispositifs of violence, mobility, security? How transnational professional fields emerged through the specialisation of their management and how they relate to politicians and to politicisation of people? How a « beyond » of the reason of state reconfigure the boundaries of what means national security, public and private sphere, internal and external borders?
Empirically from the 1980s to now, the focus has been around the development of policing activities transnationally, especially in Europe and in the Transatlantic area. Topics include:
- Police liaison officers in Europe, actors of the international scene, the end of the supposed monopoly of the military and the diplomats, the challenge to professionals of politics
- Terrorism as a false concept- Thinking political violence relationally- the construction of the boundaries between security and insecurity- network of professionals of political violence and networks of professionals of security- the relations between the two worlds.
- European Union: the struggle against terrorism and the emergence of a field of professionals of « internal security in Europe ». The security continuum and the connection between political violence and foreigners- The justification of exceptional practices by police and intelligence services for managing the everyday practices of migrants. (De)citizenship. The trajectories of the institutions of migration, justice and home affairs, a field of professionals of (in)security expanding beyond Europe and beyond public management. Mobility as freedom of circulation in the European Union? Mobility under smart surveillance. Smart mobility against smart surveillance.
- Antiterrorist policies in Europe and their effects on freedom, privacy, equality. Constructing the boundaries between war-crime terrorism and fate. Refusing the functionalist answer that antiterrorism is the answer to a predefine terrorism. When antiterrorist policies construct the enemy within as a (virtual) traveller. The transatlantic management of security. Abandoning political judgement for technology. Schengen- Justice and Home Affairs in Europe and their external dimensions.
- Merging of internal security and external security: Refusing the war and crime argument. The justification of global terrorism or global insecurity and its errors- Why police activities and military activities are pushed to « fusion »? Symbolic politics, politicians and transnational practices of antiterrorist coalitions. The strategies of reconversion of the « strategists »: geopoliticisation of the everyday- Abnormalising some citizen – the Ban-opticon.
- Migrants and refugees in Europe, border controls and beyond: space-time controls, traceability of mobility, freedom and autonomy of migrants : The sociology of the different universes of professionals of border controls. The political imagination of mobility. Is moving a form of resistance and a practice of freedom?
- Security and liberty, biometrics identifiers and databases, societal security : the de-assembling and re-assembling of the defense industry into a border-security-prevention complex of services. The unbearable lightness of security.
- (Un)freedom in contemporary societies: The transnational guilds managing « sensitive information » and the reconfiguration of the reason of state, a post-Snowden enquiry on the relations between intelligence, surveillance and obedience.