Idling in Mao’s Shadow: Heroin Addiction and the Contested Therapeutic Value of Socialist Traditions of Laboring

The Chinese government has come under attack by international critics for forcing drug users to labor in the name of treatment. While joining these activists in criticizing conditions in compulsory labor centers, former detainees who congregated at a drop-in center in southern Yunnan also defended the therapeutic potential of socialist legacies of laboring. Shuttling between laboring in state compulsory centers and idling in a market economy,...