Alliance Software:

A kinship database and graphical approach to genealogyShigenobu SugitoSugiyama Jogakuen UniversityAt Digital Innovation, Sydney University, 11/09/2008

Preface or background story My fieldtrip this year (01/08/08 - 13/09/08)

Sydney, and Campbelltown• Sydney: Usyd and UTS• Campbelltown: Town development, social housing, and local Indigenous families

Alice Springs, Yuendom, and Papunya• Wrlpiri Media, Youth Education, and Art Centre• After the Intervention

Auckland, and Christchurch• Maori researchers, and Maori organization• Whakapapa: identity, and benefits

Why genealogy and kinship database?

Contents My background:

Fieldwork Computer and cultural & social sciences

Alliance project: genealogy and kinship database framework Interface solutions Graphical solutions New Alliance Visualisation

Demonstration Alliance Alliance Site (URL: http://study.hs.sugiyama-u.ac.jp/alliance

/)• Alliance Blog• Alliance User registration• Alliance Download Site

Standalone Alliance

Why genealogy and kinship? We are living in multi-layers of human relations.

We are born in a family of orientation.• Can’t refuse any relations from sociological parents and thei

r relatives!• Can’t choose our neighbours or locals!

We are growing up and establish our own relationship include partners.

We, maybe, have own family of procreation. We belongs to primary groups and secondary groups. We, somehow, need identification of our self, espec

ially in modern network society. Image your kinship!

Ego focal family to extended family

and

From kinship terminology (1) In English

From kinship terminology (2) Or Yolngu

Kinship study in the modern network society Reproductive technology and kinship:

M. Strathern • 1992 ”Reproducing the Future”• 1999 ”Technologies of Procreation: kinship in the age of assisted conception”

Strong concern about the genealogy databases in immigrant society like US and Australia:

Varieties of databases: onboard name list of immigrant ship, ancestoral country, surname, families, Royal families, and so on

Mormon’s genealogy concept produced GEDCOM system: tracing up to “Adam”, not “Eva”

Genealogy resources in the Web

Indigenous knowledge movement Mythical knowledge, ceremonial knowledge, and kinship knowledge are related

with Land rights, heritage, and native title in Australia and another counties

Australia: National Native Title Tribunal: http://www.nntt.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

New Zealand: Waitangi Tribunal: http://www.waitangi-tribunal.govt.nz/

Resources in the web Genealogy as SNS (Social Network System)

Dec. 2006: Amiglia: http://www.amiglia.com/ (no more?)

Jan. 2007: Geni: http://www.geni.com Nov. 2007: TechCrunch: Geni Clone Growing A Lot Fas

ter Than Geni• Verwandt.de

Other resources Ancestry.Com Cyndi’s list: genealogy database

Genographic Project by National Geography and IBM

Revised kinship study: framework

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 .

Why commercial software?

Even professional anthropologists have used to use commercial software, like “Family Tree Maker” for Windows, “Reunion” for Macintosh, and so on, for a long time.

Those application suit to the any anthropological field? Of course, those are not!

The purpose of those software is to trace to the ancestor as a uni-lineal way, not to seek the afinal relationship and describing the kinship relationship, anyhow.

However, many anthropologist are still using. Why?

Fit to the court case? • Yes, many lawyers in Native Title Tribunal and the court don’t have

any world-wide knowledge of kinship. They are a sort of so-call ethno-centric people, but they are legally correct.

Problem is the usage of commercial software by the anthropologists affects people’s unique kinship knowledge

Fieldwork in Micronesia and Australia Micronesian Study

Material culture: housing and clothes in 1979 and 1981 Aboriginal study

Fieldwork in Arnhem Land, NT, since 1984• NME, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan, Australian collection project and research

• As the result, our research group has organised two Aboriginal Art Exhibition in 1986 in Kobe, and 1992 in NME

Main topics• Aboriginal Arts & Crafts: Oenpelli• Housing issues in Aboriginal remote communities: Manigrida• Kinship and population: Galiwin’ku

Related organisation: ANU, and AIATSIS

Computing, cultural & social sciences Simulation analysis of prehistoric Japanese popul

ation in Jomon era (BP2000-12000) in 1984 Macroscopic population dynamics study

Cluster analysis of distribution of slash burn farming in rural Japan in Edo era (BP150) in 1985 Findings of two patterns: urban and rural type of farmin

g Development of “Alliance” application, kinship da

tabase and genealogy by Java since 1996 Family analysis of Edo period from demographic document

records in 2005

Alliance project: genealogy and kinship database Alliance Project concepts in brief

Alliance is an anthropological fieldwork tool Focused on genealogy database and kinship study

Alliance is a universal tool for common kinship system Flexible format With converter project Alliance operation will be shown later

Alliance is applied as a common platform: Windows, Macintosh, Unix, or Linux Free software, but need registration before download To be a open source software in near future

Joint project with historical demography

Japanese historical records: linkage historical document database

Korean’s historical records England parish records?

with another database Blue Mad Bay genealogy in Eastern Arnhem Land Graphical database in Central Desert

Linkage project with Prof. Nakata’s project Prof. Oshima’s fieldnote and genealogy in TSI in 1970’ Another linkage project in near future

New Project Extended and/or new project

Tiwi population study and Melbourne population study Database project:

• To examine XML-based database compatibility Contribution to indigenous society research?

• Kinship database, genealogy, and demography

Graphical solution User interface

Fieldworker (anthropologists) - conservative triangle and circle as a signs: another possibility?

Database and as a analysis tool kit• Analytic path to Pajek, or other network analysis

More interactive Why 3D?

Tangled relations in consanguinial and afinal relationship Multiple layers (windows)

Geo-spacial linkage with Alliance James Rose case GoogleEarth API

Interface solutions Interface format

CSV GEDCOM XML

External solution Historical demography converter

possible• P-graph• API linkage: GoogleEarth• GIS softwares

New Alliance On the go

WebAlliance Time-basedAlliance

Planning NetworkAlliance GeospaceAlliance

Visualisation of genealogy (1)

Visualisation of genealogy (2)

Left: James Rose, personal communication Right: Prof. Douglas White (UC Irvine): http://eclectic.ss.

uci.edu/~drwhite/pgraph/p-graphs.html

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Basic concept of WebAlliance

Key image is small web server is working in your PC.

PC

Java VM(Java Runtime environment)

Alliance Engine

database

HTTPCommunicationmodule

Browser(Internet Explorer,FireFox etc.

Basic logic of the Alliance

DatabaseWe are using HSQLDB, now, however, we change any other xml-based database.

Communication module to HTTP browser.We are using Tomcat, now.

James Rose case His presentation in ”Tradition, Adaptation, The ‘Tide of History’ Workshop” at UQ on 23/07/2008 sample

Abstructs: titled as “Structural event indexing and social network analysis” P-graph analysis: D. White

James Rose

Moving Pattern Analysis

Kinship

Network

Geni.Com

Verwandt.de

Thoroughbred

Ancestry.Com: sample family tree

Ancestry.Com: top page

GenographicProject: National Geography and IBM

CyndisList

Wikipedia: GEDCOM