Nelson Mandela and the politics of representation in Robben Island Museum, South Africa

Abstract

In the post apartheid South Africa, Nelson Mandela emerges as the chief icon of political imprisonment in the narration of Robben Island Museum. The predominating conception of Mandela as the former prisoner emeritus of Robben Island continues to attract public discourse and as a matter of fact has become the narrative iconography of Robben Island in the eyes of international visitors. This article examines how and why such narratives persist. This is done by analyzing how the Jetty 1 exhibition has attempted to engage this dominant ideology.