Le mouvement altermondialiste

08:18 Nov 24, 2008 

It clearly is important to avoid the "anti" when referring to this movement.
I work and translate for "altermondialistes", and we opted for "alternative globalization movement" as our standard translation.

20:33 Nov 22, 2008 

Despite the existence of separate Wikipedia articles on "anti-globalization" and "alter-globalization" it is doubtful that the two terms really refer to two different movements: the phenomenon certainly covers groups with different political orientations but there is no centralized organization of "antis" as opposed to "alters". Equally their ideological differences are confused and difficult to disentangle (other than the difference of word anti/alter).

In the British press by far the most common spelling is anti-globalisation (with an S rather than Z). On The Telegraph website anti-globalisation gets 296 hits and alter-globalisation none. On the Guardian website anti-globalisation gets 1054 hits and alter-globalisation 4.

22:13 Nov 21, 2008 

It's very interesting to note the differences in ghits Bourth has found. It's a good point that anti- seems more common in English and alter- in French. The French term does however have almost 3 times more hits than the English term, and the origins of the movement were in large part French.

I'm not aware that there are 2 different movements (although the English Wikipedia article does seem to suggest this). The difference was in the idea that ALTER (globalizing DIFFERENTLY) was thought to be a more positive political project than ANTI (AGAINST globalization).

It seems clear that the translator should make an informed choice between the terms anti- or alter- for English use, their appropriateness depending on the type of text...

21:48 Nov 21, 2008 

Of course if your text refers to the two movements, antimondialisation AND altermondialisation then you have to use both. But I remain to be convinced the French care about any subtle differences: for them, they are right, and only altermondialisation counts. The "generic" term in English is "anti-".

21:45 Nov 21, 2008 

If this refers specifically to the French context, then "alterglobalization" by all means (but why not"altermondialisation" in that case?). Otherwise "Antiglobalization".
altermondialiste - 218,000 ghits
but only
antimondialiste - 6,970 ghits

antiglobalist - 79,000 ghits
but only
alterglobalist - 5,590 ghits