Dr Yolandi Burger - Nelson Mandela’s Narrative Spaces

Joint Loughborough-Leicester IAS Fellow Dr Yolandi Burger delivers a seminar on their research - How do places named after Nelson Mandela operate as narrative infrastructures through which memory, identity, and civic meaning are negotiated? Building on the Named after Nelson (NaN) project, this IAS–LIAS fellowship complements the Gauteng City-Region Observatory's project on urban places as narrative spaces. The presentation explores how toponymy, graphic heritage, and storytelling intersect to shape public understanding of Mandela’s legacy across diverse urban contexts. Drawing on case studies from Gauteng in South Africa, and extending the dialogue to Leicester in the United Kingdom, this talk positions narrative mapping and interpretive design as methodological instruments, while drawing on urban observatory thinking as a conceptual framework for analysing how symbolic association translates into lived spatial experience. The presentation advances interdisciplinary dialogue across urban heritage, design, and digital mapping by demonstrating how narrative methodologies can structure the interpretation of symbolic urban landscapes within SDG-oriented heritage discourse. It proposes narrative space as both an analytical lens and a collaborative platform for advancing transnational heritage engagement. For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias