This article presents the results of an ethnographic research\ua0into the ways in which the risks inherent to modernity\ua0shape subjectivities in the city of Guadalajara in different social\ua0positions. The analysis focuses on the subjects’ relationship\ua0with State institutions, work and family; on the meanings\ua0and practices that appear in the context of urban daily\ua0life marked by the expansion of the ominous; and on the\ua0conceptions of community in the context of risk. The risk is\ua0revealed as a control apparatus with a strong individualizing power, able to weaken the social agency and to exacerbate the precariousness of the common