Rebecca Sockbeson is a Wabanaki scholar and activist in the field of Indigenous Peoples' education.
Sockbeson is a member of the Penobscot Indian Nation of Indian Island and Wabanaki Confederacy of tribes located in Maine, United States and the Maritime provinces of Canada. She is the eighth child of the Elizabeth Sockbeson clan, the auntie of over 100 Waponahki & Stoney Sioux youth and the mother of three children who are also of the Alexis Nakota Sioux First Nation of Alberta. She is the niece of State of Maine Senior Advisor on Tribal Affairs Donna Loring. Sockbeson is an associate professor of Indigenous Peoples Education focusing on Indigenous knowledge and knowledge mobilization, Aboriginal healing through language and culture, anti-racism and decolonization with the Department of Educational Policy Studies in the Faculty of Education and the associate director of Intersections of Gender at the University of Alberta. Sockbeson's poem written in honor of missing and murdered Indigenous women, “Hear me in this concrete beating on my drum”, was a winning entry in the Word on the Street Poetry Project in 2018 and is sandblasted on a downtown Edmonton sidewalk as part of a permanent public art installation.
Education
Sockbeson earned a BA from the University of Maine, received a master's degree in education from Harvard University, and went on to confer her PhD in Educational Policy Studies at the University of Alberta, specializing in Indigenous Peoples' Education. Her doctoral study, Cipenuk Red Hope: Weaving Policy Toward Decolonization & Beyond, engages with how Indigenous ways of knowing and being can inform policy development.
Professional activities
In 1997, Sockbeson was hired as coordinator of Multicultural Programming and Native American Student Affairs at the University of Southern Maine.
In 2017, Sockbeson and Cora Weber-Pillwax were awarded a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight Grant for the research project, Indigenous knowledge mobilization: A purposeful collaboration between Indigenous communities and higher education.
Sockbeson's delivery at a university-wide reconciliation event is part of a 2017 documentary film Journey Towards Reconciliation.
From 2018 to 2020, Sockbeson served as visiting Libra Scholar for the University of Maine College of Education to support efforts to educate Maine pre-service teachers toward compliance with the Maine Wabanaki Studies Law, also known as LD 291.
Sockbeson was a historical consultant for the film Bounty, about the Spencer Phips Proclamation.
Recognition
In 2013, Sockbeson and her Indigenous colleagues were awarded a University of Alberta Human Rights Teaching Award for their role in coordinating and teaching Alberta's first compulsory course in Aboriginal Education, EDU 211: Aboriginal Education & the Context for Professional Development.
Activism and policy work
As a young woman Sockbeson was inspired by stories of the American Indian Movement and Wounded Knee Sockbeson organized a grassroots organization, IRATE, Indigenous Resistance Against Tribal Extinction.
In 1999, Sockbeson spoke against dioxin pollutants in her community to international negotiators of a treaty to eliminate or ban the most widespread persistent organic pollutants (POPs): “Unless you take action to eliminate dioxin and other persistent pollutants, there will be no Penobscots living on the islands by the end of the next century.” She also spoke out against environmental genocide in the film Drumbeat for Mother Earth (Bullfrog Films).
In 2000, Sockbeson, along with other Waponahki people, provided testimony to the Maine Legislature in support of LD 2418, “An Act Concerning Offensive Names.” She shared firsthand experiences of being a hate crime victim in grade school to illustrate why the “S” word is harmful to Indigenous peoples.
Sockbeson was one of several Waponahki people who lobbied and testified for the implementation of Maine Law LD 291: An Act to Require Teaching of Maine Native American History. The Law passed in 2001 and went into effect in 2004. She served as Penobscot Representative on the Wabanaki Studies Commission from 2001–2003 to ensure fulfillment of the Wabanaki Studies Law legislation, help develop curricular resources, and submit a report outlining recommendations for LD 291 compliance.