ABSTRACT
Contrary to the thesis propounded by Huntington, it is not primarily mutual misunderstanding, rejection and mistrust that have provided the subliminal undercurrents propelling the forward evolution of world society. To the contrary: the majority of the socio-cultural phenomena that have accompanied globalization are characterized, rather, by a process of métissage, of creolization, a tendency toward social amalgamation, and the increasingly ubiquitous infiltration, mingling and coalescence of disparate cultural ingredients. This chapter highlights the contours of métissage, as a form in which global law is emerging, against the backdrop of the legal structures presupposed by the conflict-of-laws paradigm. Such a comparative approach simplifies the task of bringing into relief the specificities of the legal syncretism here under discussion. Rudiments comprise three separate dimensions, the isolation of which first makes it possible to comprehend the sociological significance of this metaphor and its usefulness from a social scientific point of view: transformative dimension, temporalizing dimension, and antithetical dimension.
