Prison Theatre and the Governance of Participation in China

The Rule of Wonder: Prison Theatre and the Governance of Participation in China

Dr Xiaoye Zhang, De Montfort University, UK.

4pm UK | 12 noon Argentina | 5pm Spain

Abstract:

This talk examines prison theatre as a window into the governance of incarceration in contemporary China. Drawing on ethnographic research with a prison theatre programme in a Chinese men’s prison, it explores how performance functions not only as a rehabilitative or cultural activity, but also as a practical and symbolic technology of penal governance.

The talk argues that prison theatre helps make ‘reform’ visible. Through rehearsals, scripted performances, institutional ceremonies, and encounters between prisoners, officers, artists, visitors, and media audiences, theatre becomes a means through which the prison organises bodies, emotions, moral narratives, and institutional order. Rather than treating prisoner participation as straightforward empowerment, the talk considers its ambivalent role within what I call a participatory model of control: a mode of governance that works by inviting, managing, rewarding, and displaying participation.

The title, ‘The Rule of Wonder’, draws from the phrase hua fuxiu wei shenqi — “turning the decayed into the wondrous” — a recurring expression in Chinese penal discourse and official accounts of prison work. It captures the exemplary logic through which the prison presents itself as capable of transforming morally damaged subjects into visible signs of reform. By analysing theatre as both practice and spectacle, the talk reflects on what prison performance reveals about the affective, participatory, and performative dimensions of penal power in China.

Bio:

Dr Xiaoye Zhang is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at De Montfort University, UK. Her research focuses on punishment, prisons, social control, gender, and ethnographic methods, with a particular emphasis on penal governance in China. She has conducted long-term ethnographic research on prison theatre, performance, and reform in Chinese prisons. Her forthcoming book, The Rule of Wonder: Performance Making as Social Control in a Chinese Prison, will be published in Palgrave Macmillan’s Prison Studies series in 2027.

This workshop is part of the Social Analysis of Penalities Across Boundaries series which is co-organised by Professor Richard Sparks and Professor Máximo Sozzo.

If you want to find out more about the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research please visit our website SCCJR - The Scottish Centre for Crime & Justice Research.