Identity, Home, and Travel Theme Analysis

Binti, the novella’s titular character, is a mathematically gifted young woman of the South African Himba people. Her world turns upside down when she’s admitted to Oomza University far across the galaxy—on a full scholarship. In the world of the novella, the Himba stick close to home and seldom leave their ancestral lands, even for nearby cities—and no Himba has ever gone to Oomza Uni. Notably, Binti leaves her home believing she knows exactly who and what she is: a proud Himba, a talented mathematician, and a skilled “master harmonizer” (a person who can control electrical currents to create various technologies). However, as Binti travels and meets people and beings very different from the Himba, including the jellyfish-like aliens known as the Meduse that hijack her spaceship, she begins to see her identity and her home in a new light. Ultimately, the novel suggests that while staying close to home may help a person feel secure, traveling offers people the opportunity to see their home and their culture through fresh eyes, thereby gaining a more nuanced understanding of who they are.

Binti is at a crossroads in how she thinks of her identity as she leaves her family home for the spaceship bound for Oomza Uni under the cover of night. She knows what her life will entail if she stays: she’ll marry, she’ll take over her father’s workshop, and she’ll always have access to the otjize (a mixture of oil, clay, and scent that Himba spread over their bodies and hair) that marks her as a proud member of the Himba people. However, she also knows that the only way to reach her full potential as a mathematician is to leave her home and pursue her education across the galaxy, where no Himba has ever been. This will destroy her prospects for marriage, if not permanently damage her relationships with her family members. Already, then, Binti sees herself as flouting the traditions and expectations of her people, even as she constantly—and proudly—thinks of her otjize, traditional ankle bracelets, and special braided hairstyle to ground and calm herself in stressful moments. In this sense, as Binti sets off into the wider world, she purposefully takes pride in the things that do mark her as Himba—even as she does the one thing that Himba never do—to help her feel more at peace with her decision to leave. It’s puzzling, then, when a security guard at the station reads her astrolabe (a communication device that contains Binti’s past and future) and not only congratulates her on her admittance to Oomza Uni but warmly says that Binti is the pride of her people. This offers the hope that Binti won’t suffer as much as she believes she will for her “transgression”; it may well be possible to reconcile her choice to go to Oomza Uni with the beliefs and expectations of her culture.

Leaving, however, is only the first challenge to Binti’s identity—even as she tries to reconcile her transformations with the home culture she loves. Following the Meduse’s attack on the spaceship, Binti befriends a young Meduse named Okwu and brokers peace between the Meduse and Oomza Uni (the university stole the chief Meduse’s stinger; the Meduse attacked the ship to try to get the stinger back). Following this and as Binti begins her education, she’s disturbed by how the things that marked her as Himba seem to change or slip away altogether. To earn the Meduse’s trust, she not only promises them a jar of precious otjize, which they discover has healing powers; they also sting her and transform her braids into okuoko, or blue Meduse tentacles. The okuoko in particular present a major problem for Binti. Traditionally, her hair is braided in a pattern devised by her family members and which, if a person knows how to “read” her braids, tells the story of her family. The 10 thick okuoko make these braids impossible, thereby making Binti feel unmoored and separated from her family, her home, and her history. However, the okuoko tell a story of their own: Okwu explains that Binti’s okuoko symbolize that she’s become a part of the Meduse family. In this sense, though her identity is changing, it’s not necessarily changing for the worse—her new hair simply reflects what she’s been through and conveys that her family is bigger than when she left home.

Similarly upsetting is Binti’s dwindling supply of otjize and her quest to track down the ingredients to make more once she’s on the planet that’s home to Oomza Uni. It’s heartbreaking when she agrees to give the Meduse her jar of otjize from home, as Binti feels like she’s quite literally giving her home and her culture away—the otjize is made with clay that’s only found in her ancestral lands, and it smells undeniably of Earth and of the life she left behind. However, as with her new okuoko, exchanging the otjize with the Meduse symbolizes Binti’s expanding family and her shifting place in the world. Meanwhile, it’s telling that while Binti agonizes over whether the otjize she makes with new ingredients is real, it stills behaves exactly as Earth-made otjize does, colors Binti’s skin the same reddish color, and even heals Okwu’s injuries like the original otjize did. Through this, Binti begins to see that even as her identity changes and her family expands over the course of her travels, it’s still possible to keep the rituals and practices that make her feel secure and at home alive. Traveling, the novel suggests, may change a person’s identity, but it also has the power to make clear what’s important to maintain in terms of one’s traditions and customs from home.