Alliance Blog
Alliance Project : Kinship Database and Genealogy

• Alliance services return!
  Alliance Services return! There are two main changes, Alliance server system, and Alliance blog system. System has automatically recognized display language system, English or Japanese, depending on user's system setting. Alliance main: http://study.hs.sugiyama-u.ac.jp/alliance/ new user's registration: http://study.hs.sugiyama-u.ac.jp/alliance/view/user/registration.html Alliance download site: http://study.hs.sugiyama-u.ac.jp/alliance/view/user/login.html Alliance Blog in English: http://study.hs.sugiyama-u.ac.jp/e/ Alliance Blog in Japanese: http://study.hs.sugiyama-u.ac.jp/j/
• Alliance server maintainance
  Alliance server system will stop from 0 am of Oct. 4 until 9 am of Oct. 6, JST for the maintainance and replacement. Alliance Project apologize all users inconvenience.
• new information
  Alliance Project is very glad to inform you a minor version-up of Alliance3.1, however, we are receiving many user unknown system message from your mail server. We appreciate if you will send your new email address with your user name to our project.
• Minor version-up of Alliance3.1
  Alliance Project has released the minor version-up of Alliance, rev. 070909, as follows. New function: 1) add the credit information of the databases in a genealogy and TraceRoute output. 2) add the colours of attributes like as the genealogy expression. Bug fix: 1) spouse expressions for the cognatic display. 2) English messages for the kinship terminology function 3) some other details Apology: Help function isn't supported by this minor version-up. It will be released in next update. Alliance Project will let you know in case. Update method: There are two method for updating, full installation or installation of update module "alliance.jar". Please replace it in the program files in later case! Recommendation: Alliance3 users: update module, "alliance.jar", only Alliance2 users: full installation Alliance1 users: full installation and conversion of your database set. Please contact Alliance Project in case!
• visiting Australia and New Zealand
  I have been to Australia and New Zealand from Aug 4 to 26. Main purpose my visit, this time, was collecting informations for now and future project for the Alliance Project and promotion activity for the Alliance. Scedule and visiting places are as follows. I appreciate all of those instituional peoples and individual peoples for our fruitful discussion about the kinship database and software for the future Alliance project. Aug 4-7: Perth: University of Western Australia, and a consultant anthropologist Aug 8-10: Darwin: Charles Darwin University, and Northern Territory Museum and Art Gallery Aug 11-15: Canberra: Australian Institure of Aborigines and Torres Strait ISlanders Study, and the Australian Nathional University Aug 16-20: Auckland and Hamilton: University of Auckland, and University of Wikato Aug 21-23: Sydney: University of Sydney, Univserity of Technology, Sydney, and Native Title reserarch organization Aug 24-25: Brisbane: University of Queensland
• pay a lot more attention to and become better equipped to understand kinship
  I am on a visit to Australia for the Alliance Project, funded by JSPS, 4-15 August 2007. I have become increasingly aware of the importance of kinship for the study of industrial societies after discussions with anthropologists here. Aboriginal Australia was seen as an important place for the study of kinship in past decades, however a rejection of African descent theory and new thinking about social organization in Aboriginal societies have led to the neglect of kinship in recent years. Of course, other trends in modern anthropology are contributory factors. Among others, the American anthropologist David Graeber has written about kinship in industrial societies in his 2005 essay, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. Graeber says, ‘The term “kin-based” is often used the way people used to use the word “primitive”; these are exotic societies which are in no way like our own. (That’s why it is assumed we need anthropology to study them; entirely different disciplines, like sociology and economics, are assumed to be required to study modern ones.) But then the exact same people who make this argument will usually take it for granted that the main social problems in our own, “modern” society (or “postmodern”: for present purposes it’s exactly the same thing) resolve around race, class, and gender. In other words, precisely from the nature of our kinship system.’ (Graeber 2004: 51-52). Most would readily agree with Graeber’s proposition that industrial societies are just as ‘kin-based’ as any others. However, in teaching anthropology, the study of kinship appears to be useful only as a means of understanding ‘classic’ ethnography. This is a deplorable situation in anthropology, in my view. Perhaps it is time to pay a lot more attention to and become better equipped to understand kinship in modern / post-modern societies. See http://www.prickly-paradigm.com/paradigm14.pdf. Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragments_of_an_Anarchist_Anthropology .
• Alliance3.1 was released
  Alliance3.1 was released and Alliance was updated. And also, Alliance download site was advanced. Users may download new Alliance from the following site. If you Alliance2.x user, you may use Alliance3.1, when you will replace "alliance.jar", only, in your programme folder. New users may download from "New user registration" in the left block, after the registration of your details. Users and newly registered users may download the Alliance3.1 form "User services: download alliance" in the left block, also. Users can choose to download Alliance3.1 as a whole or a module "alliance.jar". We recommend you may check your machine environment for download. Alliance project will accept your question about the environnment for the application and procedure for your download by email, alliance[at]hs.sugiyama-u.ac.jp. If you have installed Alliance2.x, already, you may download "alliance.jar", only and replace your old "alliance.jar" file in your programe folder. New feature is as follows. 1: Multiple atribution colour images are applied. Users can choose maximum 4 colour images. Users must check how to apply it in "genealogy window" of Alliance system. 2: Single spouse of every persons is displayed in each genealogy. Users can choose any spouse to substitute to original one, when particular person has multiple spouses. 3: Kinship terminology is applied as your request. Users can edit any kinship terminology table in "KinTerm editor". Alliance project prepares the extention of kinship terminology to the affinal genealogy, now. Project will anounce it later. 4: Help system for the Alliance was renewed. 5: And also, project updates many features and bag-fix for the Alliance3.1. EDIT: About the "Web Alliance" services, users may not use this function from now. Alliance project starts to update "Web Alliance". Project will anounce its completion before this year end. New features of Web Alliance will be implemented as equivalent as the stand alone Alliance features.
• Seminar presentation at the "Historical Demography"
  Prof. S.Sugito has his presentation at the "Historical Demography" in Tokyo Research Center for the Reitaku University, titled as "Fieldwork of 'Shumon Aratamecho' in Edo era: social anthroplogical analysys by the kinship database and genealogy, 'Alliance'", on June 30, 2007. Historical Demography Seminat in Tokyo Research Center for the Reitaku Univesrsity June 30, 2007 Saturday, 10:30-12:30 Host: Prof. Hiroshi Kawaguchi (Tezukayama University) Presenter: Prof. Shigenobu Sugito (Sugiyama Jogakuen University) Title: Fieldwork of 'Shumon Aratamecho' in Edo era: social anthroplogical analysys by the kinship database and genealogy, 'Alliance' Abstract: Presenter attempts to analyse the traditional families in Tokugawa Japan, using Alliance system. "Alliance" system was developed as a tool for the cultural or social anthropologists to support their fieldwork. With this system, it is possible to draw family trees of some families. This analysys tries a new approach to connect cultural or social anthropology and historical demography in order to get a framework for the family and kinship study with "Allia