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2026-present
Assistant Professor, Xiamen University, China
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2024-2026
Teaching Fellow, School of Law, Society, and Criminology, University of New South Wales, Australia
Dr Apei Song
Innovative approaches to critical health challenges.
Song Apei is a health researcher whose work explores innovative and people-centred approaches to emerging and critical health challenges, including drug use and overdose, HIV prevention and treatment, mental health, and recovery. His research is grounded in human-centred and community-oriented perspectives, with particular attention to the lived experiences of marginalised populations and the social and institutional conditions that shape health, care, and recovery.
Drug use and overdose
Community-based rehabilitation
HIV prevention, intervention, and treatment
Mental health
Recovery models
- PhD
- UNSW Sydney, awarded May 2026
- Master of Sociology
- Xiamen University, awarded June 2021
- Research areas
- Drug use and overdose; community-based rehabilitation; HIV prevention, intervention, and treatment; mental health; and recovery models.
Positions and Employments
Leaderships
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2025-present
NGO Co-founder, Australian Alternative Sino-Queer Collective (AASC)
A volunteer-based non-governmental organization dedicated to building spaces of care, creativity, and solidarity for Sino-queer communities. -
2026-present
Director, The China Drug Policy and Governance Platform
Evidence-based, interdisciplinary research on drug policy and governance. -
2025-present
Editor in Board for the journal Contemporary Drug Problems
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2025-present
Assistant Editor in board for the Journal of Chinese Sociology
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2021-2022
Assistant Editor and Editor, MDPI, Social Sciences Department; working for Social Sciences & Religions (A&HCI)
Publications
For the live publication record, visit Google Scholar .
Drug use and rehabilitation
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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.
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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).
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2026
Weak chemsex as cultural scripts: Understanding how Chinese gay men narrate sexualised drug use
Song, A., & Tong, Y. Sexualities.
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2025
Framing "Chemsexism": Chinese Gay Men Navigating Stigma and Labelling
Song, A., & He, J. Journal of Homosexuality, 1-23.
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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.
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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.
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2024
Strong Control and Weak Service: Enforcing Drug Treatment in China
Jiang, J., & Song, A. Journal of Drug Issues, 55(3), 379-400.
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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.
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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.
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2026
"Be Mom, for Mom": Anti-Authority Recovery Narratives of Females Who Use Drugs in China
Song, A., & He, J. Contemporary Drug Problems.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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2021
Distressing experiences of Chinese schooling winners: School infiltration in Chinese family parenting
Song, A., & Ren, Z. Cogent Education, 9(1), 2034245.
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2024
多重逻辑与戒毒者身份困境
宋阿沛，《北大社会学刊》。
HIV prevention and treatment
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2026
"New Barefoot Doctors": How Social Workers Navigate HIV Care and Structural Marginality in Yi Ethnic Minority Communities
Song, A. Social Science & Medicine, 403, 119356.
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2026
"I Take Responsibility, No Care, Why Not Harm?": Drug-Related HIV-Positive Widows' Narratives of Family Trajectories
Song, A. Substance Use and the Family: The Traumatic Impact of Usage and Addiction upon Families, Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research, Emerald Publishing Limited.
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2026
"It's Time... to End Everything": Discontinue Medication Choices and Narratives Among Elderly HIV-Positive Yi Women
Song, A. Google Scholar record.
Mental health disorders
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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.
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In press
"Negotiating Kangfu in Complex Realities": How Social Workers in China Make Sense of Community-Based Psychiatric Rehabilitation
Song, A., et al. Journal of Mental Health (in press).
Drug policing and harm reduction
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2026
Surviving in the Cracks: How People Who Use Drugs Navigate Police-Led Rehabilitation in China
Song, A., & Jiang, J. Journal of Drug Issues.
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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.
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2025
Making the Enforcement Rehabilitative: Penal Welfarism and Emotional Labour of Police Officers in Chinese Drug Policing
Jiang, J., & Song, A. Criminology & Criminal Justice.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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2026
Pride and Prejudice: Strategic Coupling of Punishment and Welfare in Chinese Community Corrections
Song, A., & Jiang, J. Theoretical Criminology.
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2026
Revisiting Professional Autonomy and Structural Constraints: Relational Work in Anti-Drug Social Work
Song, A., Ma, L., & Liu, Z. International Social Work.
Grants & Awards
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2025
ARC PGC Research Candidate Award | Recognition of the above and beyond contribution to the HDR experience and research | UNSW Postgraduate Council Acknowledged
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2025
Chief Investigator | Mechanisms and Intervention Pathways of Adolescent Deviance from the Perspective of Online-Offline Integration. Shanghai Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning Youth Project (#2025ESH003; AUD$ 4,500)
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2025
Chief Investigator | Research on the Construction of Policy Discourse and Social Cognition for the Prevention of Drug Abuse among Adolescents, Shanghai Magnolia Talent-Pujiang Project (AUD$ 4,700)
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2025
Chief Investigator | University of New South Wales, Development and Research Training Fund (AUD$ 1,500)
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2024
Chief Investigator | Making Recovery Happen: How to Understand Citizenship and Employment of Chinese People Who Inject Drugs. Faculty of Law and Justice, University of New South Wales. Research and Development Support Fund (AUD$ 6,000)
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2024
Chief Investigator | University of New South Wales, Development and Research Training Fund (AUD$ 1,500)
Activities
Conference proceedings
Delivered over 10 talks across US, UK, France, China and Australia.
- 2026
Disability and Rehabilitation Methods Conference | Shanghai, China (Invited Speaker)
- 2025
The 7th Contemporary Drug Problem Conference | Manchester, UK (Oral Speaking)
- 2024
The Tackling Stigma Conference | Sydney, Australia (Oral Speaking)
- 2024
The Alcohol and Drugs History Society Biennial Conference | New York, US (Oral Speaking)
- 2024
The Fourth Academic Conference on Law, Courts, and Judges in Comparative Perspective | Hong Kong (Oral Speaking)
- 2023
Chinese Studies Association of Australia 18th Biennial Conference | Sydney, Australia (Oral Speaking)
- 2023
Chinese-style Modernization and Social Development, Fudan University Ph.D. Academic Forum | Shanghai, China (Oral Speaking; Second Award)
- 2023
Contemporary Drug Problems Conference | Paris, France (Oral Speaking)
- 2023
XX ISA World Congress of Sociology | Melbourne, Australia (Oral Speaking)
- 2022
Annual Chinese Sociology Conference | Chongqing, China (Oral Speaking)
Teaching
UNSW Beginning Teaching Training (Certification, 2023); UNSW Teaching Accelerator Program (Certification, 2025)
- 2026
Tutor, Current Issues in Criminal Policy and Justice
Teaching Master of Law and JD students in the Faculty of Law & Justice, UNSW - 2026
Tutor, Introduction to Criminal Justice
Tutorial teaching for undergraduate students in the Faculty of Law & Justice, UNSW - 2025
Tutor, Current Issues in Criminal Justice
Teaching Master of Law and JD students in the Faculty of Law & Justice, UNSW - 2024-2025
Tutor, Criminology: An Introduction
Tutorial teaching for first-year undergraduate criminology students, UNSW - 2023
Shanghai International Studies University, Online
Guest Lecturer (invited), Overseas Ethnography and Legal Studies
Scientific & community engagement
- 2026-present
Affiliated Research Member, Centre for Criminology, Law and Justice, University of New South Wales, Australia
- 2026
Co-organiser, Bridging Community and Research Queer Forum 2026 (32 speakers from 5 countries participated), Australian Alternative Sino-Queer Collective (AASC)
- 2024-2025
Recovery volunteer, Glen (NGO, a residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre) on the Central Coast of NSW
- 2023-2024
Manager (Research & Development), Australia & New Zealand Tongzhi Rainbow Alliance Inc (NGO)
- 2022-present
Invited to review manuscripts for 10 journals (e.g. Addiction, International Journal of Drug Policy, American Journal on Addictions, Frontiers in Pharmacology, Social Science & Medicine). Currently reviewing 3-5 manuscripts/month.
Presentation moments
Contact