Mayo Buenafe-Ze

Mayo Buenafe-Ze is a bilingual immigrant and multi-ethnic indigenous Filipina who has lived most of her life between the Philippines and California. She is a scholar/educator/researcher, food and cultural events experience curator, and community organizer who aims to decolonize education and support youth leadership and development.

Since 2007, she has been in research and academia in the Philippines, Netherlands, and the U.S. She has done ethnographic studies with the Ifugao peoples from the Cordillera Region (Northern Luzon, Philippines), the Omaha Tribe (specifically at the Omaha reservation in Macy, Nebraska), and the Agta hunter-gatherers of Isabela Province (Northeastern Luzon, Philippines). Her research interests utilize a decolonial framework to highlight how indigenous communities protect and manage their sacred properties, uphold food and water sovereignty, and evolve their indigenous knowledge systems. She considers it her personal responsibility and objective to facilitate knowledge sharing which centers indigenous knowledge and serves communities first.