Fuentes’ research focuses on the biocultural, delving into the entanglement of biological systems and the social and cultural lives of humans, our ancestors and a few of the other animals with whom humanity shares close relations. Trained in both zoology and anthropology, Fuentes began his scholarly career looking at the behavior and ecology of humans and other primates and patterns and trends in social organization. Early on, he split his focus between field projects involving behavioral ecological and ethnographic engagements and comparative theoretical work in human evolution and evolutionary biology. By the early 2000s, he added a focus on human biological variation and the use and misuse of those patterns and processes in the context of race/racism and sex/gender and began to further explore the dynamics of multispecies relationships and the construction of mutual ecologies. Fuentes continues research and scholarship in all of these arenas, with current projects exploring cooperation, creativity and semiosis in human evolution, multispecies anthropologies, evolutionary theory and processes, race and racism and gender/sex.

Current Projects and Collaborations

Fuentes’ current projects include the development of a biocultural model examining the evolutionary impacts of concepts in dynamic assemblages in the context of three key issues: a) how humans use their bodies and senses, b) how concepts involving the perceptions of self and others shape human societies, and c) how the basal capacity for and reliance on technology developed. Fuentes is also working with the Rising Star research project focused on Homo naledi and related issues of human evolution in collaboration with Lee Berger (National Geographic) and Keneiloe Molopyane (University of the Witwatersrand) and John Hawks (University of Wisconsin-Madison). He is collaborating with João Biehl (Princeton), Marina Hirota (Federal University of Santa Catarina) and colleagues on the “Indigenous Ecologies of Knowledge” project and Danson Kareri Mwangi (Kenya Institute of Primate Research) on human-baboon interfaces in Kenya. Finally, he is also collaborating with and Fred Omengo (Princeton) Elizabeth Nespiolo (Princeton) and Faculty and Staff at the Mpala Research Centre (Kenya).