Between Exclusion and Belonging: Liminality, Resilience and Diasporic Mediation in Fred Kuwornu’s 18 Ius Soli

Fred Kuwornu’s 18 Ius Soli (2011) intervenes in debates on citizenship, migration, and national identity in Italy by presenting the testimonies of eighteen young people born or raised in Italy to immigrant parents who remain excluded from automatic citizenship under the country’s predominantly ius sanguinis framework. This article argues that the documentary not only addresses multiculturalism and integration but also challenges racialised understandings of Italianness by exposing the tension between legal citizenship and cultural belonging. Drawing on qualitative documentary analysis, combining close reading of the interviewees’ testimonies with critical discourse and selective visual analysis, the article examines how the documentary represents institutional exclusion, individual agency, and diasporic mediation. Victor Turner’s concept of liminality, C. S. Holling’s resilience theory, and Adams Bodomo’s bridge theory are integrated into a multilevel analytical framework rather than treated as separate interpretive perspectives. Together, these approaches illuminate three interconnected processes: the production of legal liminality, the negotiation of belonging through resilience and agency, and the mediating role of diasporic subjects in redefining Italian identity. The article contributes to scholarship on Afro-Italian cultural production, documentary cinema, and citizenship by demonstrating how 18 Ius Soli reimagines Italianness as a dynamic and plural form of civic belonging.