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Events

The LSE-Fudan Global Public Policy Hub hosts a wide range of public and student-only events in collaboration with other LSE departments and academic institutions. Please see below for the past and future events.

Through innovative strategic cooperation, the LSE-Fudan Research Centre for Global Public Policy is committed to benefit China, the UK and the world.

January 2026

Book cover- between Famalies and Institutions

Book Launch: Between Families and Institutions: Mental Health and Biopolitical Paternalism in Contemporary China

Author: Zhiying Ma, Crown School of Social Work, University of Chicago

Thursday 22 January 2026, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM
Thai Theatre, Ground Floor Cheng Kin Ku Building. LSE, WC2A 3LJ

Description of the book:

Between Families and Institutions: Mental Health and Biopolitical Paternalism in Contemporary China explores how families have been centrally and controversially involved in psychiatric governance in post-reform China. Drawing on 32 months of fieldwork, interviews with key stakeholders, and archival and media analysis, it introduces the concept of “biopolitical paternalism” to illuminate how state power, medical authority, and familial care intertwine in managing people diagnosed with serious mental illnesses. Moving beyond China, the book offers a critical lens on the entanglements of care, responsibility, risk, and governance in an age of biomedicalization and neoliberal reform.

Chair: Bingchun Meng, Department of Media and Communications, LSE

Discussants:

Yuan Zhang, LSE–Fudan Global Public Policy Hub
Hans Steinmüller, Department of Anthropology, LSE

Past events