With the rapid expansion of livestreaming platforms in China and the growing participation of creators from marginalised backgrounds, some formerly incarcerated individuals have entered the digital labour market as self-described ‘special university graduates’, sharing lived experiences of crime, imprisonment, and reentry with online audiences. Drawing on narrative identity and relational desistance scholarship, particularly the concept of belonging, this study examines how lived-experience streamers navigate stigma, platform governance, and the demands of digital labour while performing prison and post-release narratives. Over 6 months, 42 ex-prisoner creators on Kuaishou were observed, with sustained attention to 13 of them, and in-depth online interviews were conducted with five participants. The findings show that livestreaming operates as a negotiated relational space in which creators engage in moral meaning-making, shape pro-social narrative selves, and cultivate audience recognition. Through ongoing interaction, livestream rooms can generate reciprocal emotional investment and a sense of community, enabling conditional forms of belonging. At the same time, these practices unfold within tightly regulated platform environments and broader structures of moral governance that constrain what can be said, how prison experiences are framed, and which identities are deemed legitimate.
Xiaoye Zhang (Sun,) studied this question.