Sociologists have long debated how labels are deployed to construct and exaggerate social threats but have yet to consider their use to cope with danger. I draw on qualitative fieldwork conducted in the midst of a gruesome turf war in Monterrey, Mexico, to conceptualize coping codes. These defensive labels emerge in everyday conversation and allow its users to allude to threatening actors without being explicit—in this case, violent organized crime labeled malitos, or little evil guys. They emerge from below and in relation to top-bottom labeling processes they can both challenge and reproduce. Coping codes provide symbolic security by minimizing danger, although at a cost when also used to draw symbolic boundaries between the living and the dead “accused of being into something.” The case calls for further research on coping codes in dangerous contexts, particularly at the onset of unsettled times when people tend to minimize rupture.

社会学家长期以来一直在争论如何使用标签来构建和夸大社会威胁，但尚未考虑使用标签来应对危险。我利用在墨西哥蒙特雷一场可怕的地盘战争中进行的定性实地调查来概念化应对代码。这些防御性标签出现在日常对话中，并允许其用户在不明确的情况下暗示威胁演员——在这种情况下，暴力有组织犯罪被贴上了malitos标签，或小恶人。它们从下面出现，并且与自上而下的标签过程有关，它们既可以挑战又可以复制。应对代码通过最大限度地减少危险来提供象征性的安全感，尽管当也被用来在生者和死者之间划定象征性的界限时，“被指控为某事”也是有代价的。该案例要求进一步研究危险环境中的应对代码，特别是在人们倾向于尽量减少破裂的不稳定时期。