ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book discusses how states deal with the alternative normative orders present in their territories. In other words, how they regulate the pluralistic character of their legal order. Pluri-legal settings pose serious governance challenges to sovereign states. The book outlines three 'moments of paradoxy', three occurrences where state entities and public officials need to navigate conflicting notions and ideas about other normative orders. It focuses on the widespread pre-occupation with making customary law 'legible'. The regulation of non-state normative systems is intertwined with questions of political power, control, subjugation, integration and exclusion. In pluri-legal settings, people have to operate the complexity of state law, including recognized customary law and possibly recorded versions of customary law, and they lived customary law – which may include non-recognized parts of customary law that have strong social relevance.
