Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I discuss my ethnographic research about Muslim girls who play urban street football. I argue that the study of religious diversity in urban spaces should include and combine both religious and non-religious or secular practices of conviviality, like street football.

Paper long abstract:

In contemporary Western-European cities, religious diversity and street football are both characteristics of urban life. Based on ten months of ethnographic research among young Muslim residents of the Schilderswijk, an urban neighbourhood in the Netherlands, this paper discusses how to study religious diversity in relation to girls' football in urban spaces. I argue that conceptualisations of "everyday Islam" in the anthropology of Islam and religion fail to capture the urban experiences and practices of 'religious but not so religious' young residents of the Schilderswijk who play football together. I show that the football players have diverse experiences and strategies of playing football on urban playgrounds, which include but also exceed the category of "Islam". I argue that their practices should not be analysed as "everyday Islam", but best understood through the concept of religious super-diversity (Becci, Burchardt, and Giorda, 2017), which provides a perspective that combines both religious and non-religious practices in urban life. Religious superdiversity emphasises the lived religious and secular experiences of young people in urban spaces beyond taking "Islam" as primary category of analysis, and it therefore provides an innovative approach to religious diversity and conviviality in urban spaces.