About the Author

Born in England, Victor Mannion O’Connell studied philosophy and earned a doctorate in social anthropology at the University of Oxford. His specialty was the anthropology of nation-building or development.

Early in his career, he helped administer a network of local, village schools for the Amerindian tribes of Guyana, South America.

He did research in Guyana and other ethnically and culturally diverse nations in the Caribbean region at a time when some of them had just become politically independent from Britain.

Later, in Canada, he became involved in the socio-economic development of aboriginal communities. He also designed and directed a University management program about the business enterprises and self-governing systems of the Indians, Inuit and Métis.

In 1981 and 1982, he was asked by approximately 65 communities of the Cree, Sioux, Assiniboine, Saulteaux, Dene-Tha and Ojibway-speaking nations of Saskatchewan to represent them in London, UK in their constitutional campaign directed mainly at the UK Parliament.   While there he also worked closely with the representatives of 76 communities from British Columbia and all the other Indian nations of Canada who sent representatives to London from time to time.

He has tutored at Oxford and Cambridge and held university posts at several Canadian universities and has experience in business and investment.