Troublemaking in hospitals: performed violence against the healthcare professions in China

Abstract

Yi Nao describes a type of violence displayed in Chinese hospitals which involves organised disturbances led by patients’ relatives and/or Yi Nao gangs. Drawing on media reports of Yi Nao, we argue that the phenomenon of Yi Nao transforms hospitals into ‘power arenas’ in which a struggle over moral and political resources (capital) takes place between patients, Yi Nao gangs, doctors, government agencies, and hospital management. Two interrelated rules that are crucial to understanding the ad hoc local strategies of the actors involved in Yi Nao are examined: the ‘publicity rule’, and the ‘rule of risk-avoidance’. We also argue that the political discourse of ‘stability’ has been internalised by the officials in the Chinese government and public hospitals in mediating social disputes. At the same time, Yi Nao actors use this discourse to creatively adapt to social resistance, as reflected in the disposition to use performative disturbance in pursuit of material or symbolic compensation.