Dr Apei Song

Drug governance, recovery, and people who use drugs in contemporary China.

I am a critical criminologist and sociologist studying how people living with drug use, surveillance, treatment systems, stigma, and social exclusion build everyday lives and routes back into society.

Google Scholar ORCID Email

Portrait of Apei Song — Research across law, sociology, criminology, and lived experiences of recovery.

Drug policy

People who use drugs

Sociology of law

Recovery and citizenship

Social work in criminology

PhD: UNSW Sydney, awarded May 2026
Fields: Socio-legal studies, drug policy, qualitative research
Focus: PWUD, recovery, chemsex, mental health, social inclusion

About

Qualitative research on governance and ordinary life.

My work sits at the intersection of drugs, recovery, addiction, and citizenship. I use qualitative methods to examine how vulnerable communities navigate institutional control, social labelling, and the practical work of rebuilding daily life.

My doctoral research at UNSW explored employment barriers and self-management among people who use drugs in China, with attention to drug treatment programs, police-led rehabilitation, social reintegration, and access to the legitimate economy.

Recent projects extend this agenda to sexualised drug use, gendered recovery narratives, digital management in rehabilitation, mental health recovery practice, and the social inclusion of communities that are often governed through stigma.

Publications

Work by research theme

For the live publication record, visit Google Scholar .

Drug recovery and governance

2026
"Stigmatisation for poppers use is a sexualised mode of governance": Lived experiences and counter-narratives of gay men who use poppers in mainland China
Song, A., & Chen, S. International Journal of Drug Policy, 152, 105277.
2026
Recovery Capital in Chinese Drug Rehabilitation: Exploring person-centred and community-based perspectives
Song, A., Dertadian, G. C., & He, J. Drug & Alcohol Review, 45(1).
2026
Weak chemsex as cultural scripts: Understanding how Chinese gay men narrate sexualised drug use
Song, A., & Tong, Y. Sexualities.
2025
Framing "Chemsexism": Chinese Gay Men Navigating Stigma and Labelling
Song, A., & He, J. Journal of Homosexuality, 1-23.
2025
Systemic Neglect Hidden Behind Tolerance: The Reproduction of Vulnerability Among Aging Heroin Users Within Community-Based Rehabilitation
Song, A., He, J., & Liu, Z. Innovation in Aging.
2024
"No Ability to Choose Freedom": A Qualitative Study of People Who Use Drugs' Experiences of Compulsory Isolation Treatment
Song, A., Zhu, C., & Liu, Z. Addiction Research & Theory.
2024
Strong Control and Weak Service: Enforcing Drug Treatment in China
Jiang, J., & Song, A. Journal of Drug Issues, 55(3), 379-400.
2022
Drug Use Disorder and Family Politics Evolution: How Can Chinese PWUD Families Quit Drugs?
Li, D., & Song, A. Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse, 23(3), 586-611.
2022
"Returning to Ordinary Citizenship": A Qualitative Study of Chinese PWUD's Self-Management Strategies and Disengagement Model of Identity
Song, A., & Liu, Z. Behavioral Sciences, 12(8), 258.
2026
"Be Mom, for Mom": Anti-Authority Recovery Narratives of Females Who Use Drugs in China
Song, A., & He, J. Contemporary Drug Problems.

Drug policing and crime

2026
Surviving in the Cracks: How People Who Use Drugs Navigate Police-Led Rehabilitation in China
Song, A., & Jiang, J. Journal of Drug Issues.
2025
Coercive Rehabilitation and Therapeutic Control: How the Police Navigate the Penal-Welfare Nexus in Chinese Drug Governance
Song, A., & Jiang, J. Policing & Society, 35(9), 1203-1218.
2025
Making the Enforcement Rehabilitative: Penal Welfarism and Emotional Labour of Police Officers in Chinese Drug Policing
Jiang, J., & Song, A. Criminology & Criminal Justice.
2023
Milestones and Current Dilemmas: Evaluation of Sentencing Standardization for Illegal Possession of Drugs in China
Wu, J., Xia, Y., & Song, A. Laws, 12(3), 53.
2025
"Nothing but...stuff being played with": Body-Constructed Narratives of Drug-Trafficking Young Girls
Song, A., & He, J. Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse.

Social welfare, social work, and addiction

2026
"New Barefoot Doctors": How Social Workers Navigate HIV Care and Structural Marginality in Yi Ethnic Minority Communities
Song, A. Social Science & Medicine.
2026
From Legal Estrangement to Legal Mobilisation: Navigating the Processual Professional Autonomy of Antidrug Social Workers
Song, A., He, J., & Cui, K. British Journal of Social Work.
2025
Tracing, Stabilising, Storytelling: How to Assemble Recovery for People Who Have Mental Health Disorders
Song, A., Li, K., Han, P., & Yao, H. Journal of Social Work.
2020
"Quit Masturbation, Change Failure": The Process, Essence, and Reflection of the Identity Construction in the Abstinence Internet Organization
Song, A. Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, 27(3), 236-273.
2023
Psychoactive Comfort Products or Snacks: How Chinese Young Adults Perceive the Potentially Addictive Nature of E-Cigarettes
Song, A., Zhang, Z., & Liu, Z. Healthcare, 11(10), 1440.
2026
Pride and Prejudice: Strategic Coupling of Punishment and Welfare in Chinese Community Corrections
Song, A., & Jiang, J. Theoretical Criminology.
2026
Revisiting Professional Autonomy and Structural Constraints: Relational Work in Anti-Drug Social Work
Song, A., Ma, L., & Liu, Z. International Social Work.

Agency studies

2026
"Breaking Through the Cracks and Pleasing Myself": Employment Decisions and Meaning-Making Among Female Workers in Chinese Counties
Liu, J., & Song, A. Journal of Gender Studies.
2021
Distressing experiences of Chinese schooling winners: School infiltration in Chinese family parenting
Song, A., & Ren, Z. Cogent Education, 9(1), 2034245.

Chinese-language publications

2024
多重逻辑与戒毒者身份困境
宋阿沛，《北大社会学刊》。

Activities

Teaching, service, and scholarly exchange

Current roles

Teaching Fellow, School of Law, Society, and Criminology, UNSW Sydney.
Research Assistant, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Coordinator and co-founder, Beyond Addiction Peer Group Learning Workshop.

Selected presentations

Contemporary Drug Problems Conference, Paris, 2023.
American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, 2023.
XX ISA World Congress of Sociology, Melbourne, 2023.
Chinese Studies Association of Australia Biennial Conference, Sydney, 2023.

Education

PhD in Criminology and Social Policy, UNSW Sydney, 2022-2026.
Master of Sociology, Xiamen University, 2018-2021.
Bachelor of Law in Social Work, Sichuan University, 2014-2018.
Bachelor of Japanese, Sichuan University, 2015-2018.

Presentation moments

Conferences and research exchange

Apei Song attending a conference discussion

Apei Song presenting at the 2024 APISWEA international annual conference

Apei Song speaking with a microphone at a presentation

Apei Song presenting at an academic forum

Apei Song speaking during a research presentation

Contact

Research conversations and collaboration.

apei.song@unsw.edu.au songasa.711@gmail.com songasa3843@hotmail.com ORCID profile Google Scholar profile UNSW profile