On the basis of ethnographic interviews in superdiverse urban neighborhoods, I propose to understand health literacy as a social practice. So far, health literacy is mainly conceptualized as a individual cognitive skill which, according to surveys such as EU-HLS, the majority of people does not possess in an adequate way. Yet, these assessment tools systematically ignore social and experiential dimensions of knowledge on health and healthcare. Ethnographic research brings forward these neglected dimensions and calls for rethinking basic assumptions underlying the concept of health literacy.