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The issues being raised by globalization today – migratory movements, multiculturalism, cultural differences and intercultural dialog or conflict – may be analyzed in the light of earlier episodes of globalization. In this paper, Françoise Vergès describes South-South relationships as they developed during the long history of Indian Ocean societies to look into the processes and practices of “creolization.” The history of migration, whether forced or driven by geopolitical upheavals in this part of the world, provides a framework for analysis that questions the preconceptions of the mental maps that have been forged by the Eurocentric view of history. Comparisons can then be made between the roads from North to South and those from South to South or East to South, and between the zones of contact that emerged among the latter and in Europe. Hybridization, interculturalism, miscegenation and creolization can thus be analyzed as they change and evolve into new patterns.