Jonathan says reading history changed his view of Afghanistan from support to seeing occupation as harmful.
1. Heritage Voices episode 82 focuses on maroon heritage in Dominica and Jonathan Rodriguez’s research on marinaj.
2. Host Jessica Uquinto introduces Jonathan Rodriguez as a third-year PhD student in Applied Anthropology at the University of South Florida with a Fulbright U.S. Student Research Grant to Dominica.
3. The episode asks how maroon settlement, ecology, oral history, and GIS can document Dominica’s maroon past.
4. Jonathan defines marinaj as a form of resistance wherever slavery existed in the Western Hemisphere.
5. He distinguishes grand marinaj, which formed autonomous sovereign communities, from petite marinaj, which involved temporary flight and return.
6. Jonathan says petite marinaj often responded to excessive labor and violence from enslavers.
7. He traces his academic path from a master’s project on Cuba, the USSR, and the United States to anti-slavery resistance in 19th-century Cuba.
8. He names the 1812 Aponte rebellion and books by Matt Childs and Ida Ferrer as major influences.
9. Jonathan explains that Dr. Diane Wallman redirected him toward Dominica, where maroon settlements had not been studied archaeologically.
10. He says he began as a Spanish Caribbean specialist and had to learn much more about the Anglophone Caribbean.
11. Jonathan describes growing up in New York and Florida, moving to South Dakota, and being one of the only Puerto Ricans in a rural town of about 880 people.
12. He says Army service for six years, plus two tours in Afghanistan, taught him tactical site exploitation and evidence collection.
13. He connects those military skills to archaeological field methods, attention to detail, and later work with Janus Research in Tampa.
14. Reading Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States pushed him to rethink colonialism, imperialism, and slavery.
15. He says that shift moved him toward becoming an activist scholar rather than a scholar detached from present-day issues.
16. Jonathan describes Fulbright work with the Archaeological Survey of Colonial Dominica, Dr. Mark Houser, Dr. Lennox Honeychurch, and Dr. Shaila Esfri at Create Caribbean Research Institute.
17. He says the project will use digital photogrammetry, GIS, 3D modeling, oral histories, and possible laser scanning to study Chief Jacko Camp and other maroon sites.
18. Jonathan explains that a special issue in American Antiquity will present visibility analysis, accessibility analysis, line-of-sight data, and possible routes between camps.
19. The conversation stays analytical and reflective, with Jessica asking follow-up questions while Jonathan moves between biography, method, and community-based research.
20. Listeners interested in Caribbean archaeology, maroon history, and community-engaged GIS will get the most from this episode; listeners wanting a short, nontechnical overview may skip it.
