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Apei Song

Apei Song

PhD Candidate
Master of Sociology at XMU, Bachelor of social worker (Hons) at SCU; Japanese language at SCU
Faculty of Law & Justice

Brief Overview

Apei Song is an Ph.D. candidate in the School of Law, Society, and Criminology, Faculty of Law and Justice at UNSW, Sydney. His research is situated at the intersection of three interrelated themes: drugs (substance use disorder), addiction, and citizenship. In the past three years, He has used qualitative research (fieldwork, interviews, and group work) to focus on China's drug governance and people who use drugs (PWUD)' daily life self-management and treatment. He is spotlighting the identity dilemma and social integration of this marginalized group.

Apei's master thesis on "Reconstructing the possibilities of everyday life: self-management of drug users in China (in Chinese)" was completed in 2021, and he worked as a volunteer in drug services in Fujian and Chengdu, China, from June to August 2021. From September 2021 to May 2022, he worked for MDPI Publishing. Apei commenced his PhD project at UNSW Sydney in September 2022.

His project aims to explore how people who inject drugs (PWID) who have been through the drug program in China navigate work post/still in the program. He seeks to develop a picture of how this marginalized group navigates ongoing state surveillance and the way this impacts access to the 'legitimate' economy.

Research Topic

Making Recovery Happen: How to Understand Citizenship and Employment of Chinese People Who Inject Drugs

Synopsis: (100 words)

In this project, Apei will examine the life course of a marginalized group of people who inject drugs (PWID) to consider the impact of post or still in the drug treatment program to their future employment. The idea of employability is critical to ideas of productive recovery and reintegration. An examination of the drug programs will establish its three-dimensional, dynamic perspective, includes ideologies, management patterns, and practice models on PWID; It will explore how PWID, as living, breathing human being try to survive, get and keep work through imaginative actions, in a context of surveillance, incarceration, and criminalization.

This project (iRECS4340) was approved by the UNSW Ethics Review Committee in February 2024.

Supervisor/s

Dr. George (Kev) Dertadian; Pr. Phillip Wadds; Pr. Fengshi Wu

Areas of Interest

Drug policy; people who use drugs (PWUD); Recovery; Sociology of law; Sociology of addiction
  1. Jiang, J., & Song, A. (2024). Strong Control and Weak Service: Enforcing Drug Treatment in China. Journal of Drug Issues, 00220426241231710.
  2. Wu, J., Xia Y., Song, A. (2023). Milestones and Current Dilemmas: Evaluation of Sentencing Standardization for Illegal Possession of Drugs in China. Laws, 12(3):53
  3. Li, D., & Song, A. (2022). Drug use disorder and family politics evolution: How can Chinese PWUD families quit drugs? Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse, 1-26.
  4. Song, A., & Liu, Z. (2022). “Returning to Ordinary Citizenship”: A Qualitative Study of Chinese PWUD’s Self-Management Strategies and Disengagement Model of Identity. Behavioral Sciences, 12(8), 258.
  5. Song, A., & Ren, Z. (2021). Distressing experiences of Chinese schooling winners: School infiltration in Chinese family parenting. Cogent Education, 9(1), 2034245.
  6. Apei, S. (2021). “Quit masturbation, change failure”: the process, essence, and reflection of the identity construction in the abstinence internet organization. Sexual addiction & compulsivity, 27(3-4), 236-273.
  1. Annual Chinese Sociology Conference in 2022, Presentation: "Multiple Logics and Legal Consciousness. A Sociological Analysis of Law in Urban Drug Governance".
  2. 118th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (Philadelphia Aug 2023), Presentation: “Multiple Logic, Multi-Governance, and Legal Consciousness: A Legal Sociological Analysis of Urban Drug Governance” at the section on Drugs and Society Refereed Roundtables 
  3. XX ISA World Congress of Sociology (Melbourne June 2023), Presentation: “Conflict and Multiple Concepts: The Way to Analysis Implications of Chinese Drug Policy” at the section on Judicialization of Social Problems and Governance of Security in Comparative Perspectives
  4. Contemporary Drug Problems Conference (Paris, 6-8 September 2023), Presentation: “Strong Control and Weak Service: Enforcing Drug Treatment in China”
  5. Chinese-style Modernization and Social Development: Fudan University Ph.D. Academic Forum (Shanghai, October,2023), Presentation (Second Award Paper): “Reconciliation, Collaboration and Generation: Pathways to Socialised Governance of Drug Use in China”
  6. Chinese Studies Association of Australia 18th Biennial Conference 2023 (Sydney), Presentation: “The Order Backdrop under Sexual Pleasure”: A Cultural Sociological Analysis of Chinese Gay Chemsex in Sexuality.

 
  1. How to Understand and Build a Localized Recovery Capital Framework in the Beyond Addiction, Dec 2023
  2. Public Knowledge Advocacy: LGBTQ+ domestic violence in the ANTRA, May 2023
  3. My research journey at UNSW in the (Chinese) Law and Anthropology Public, April 2023