Paper short abstract:

After a year of fieldwork in Merseyside, England (2022-2023), I will reflect on my experiences with female business owners. I will discuss two specific economic practices. Firstly, the industry of unlicensed aesthetic injectables. Secondly, coercing men into sexual activity as a honeytrap.

Paper long abstract:

I recently conducted twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork in Merseyside, England, exploring the lives of individuals who sustain themselves through heterogeneous income-generating activities. Many of these activities occurred in legally ambiguous areas. In the case of male interlocutors, there was a daily effort to conceal their activities from authorities. In contrast, female interlocutors often believed that their activities would not be taken seriously due to the trivialisation of industries focused on women.

This paper will discuss ethnographic examples of two specific income-generating activities. Firstly, I will examine the use of unlicensed injectables for aesthetic purposes by individuals operating their own beauty businesses. This involves interlocutors who undergo informal training in locations like Romania and Latvia, subsequently importing unlicensed products such as Bolulax to administer to customers in the UK. Secondly, I will discuss individuals who engage in 'honeytraps' for a fee. These traps typically involve luring men into sexual activities and obtaining evidence, such as videos and photographs, for the person paying for the trap, often the wife of the ensnared man.

Although these practices are legally ambiguous, within my fieldwork area, they are widely accepted both socially and morally. Ethnographic fieldwork uniquely positioned me to gain in-depth information on these practices, as well as conducing many interviews, I regularly went to 'work' with participants witnessing these activities first hand. This presented numerous ethical dilemmas. This paper will address how these practices highlight ambiguities surrounding legality and the challenges involved in navigating this complexity as an anthropological researcher.