From December 1st 2025 to December 1st 2026, I am visiting the LSE Department of Management.
I am organizing a, closed-doors, invitation-only, Social Movements Strategy Conference in Paris in March 2026. If you are interested in attending, please apply here before January 31st for consideration, stating what you can contribute.
Research: My research seeks to explore the micro-foundations of social order: how societies organize power, and how this shapes development. I combine the tools of applied economics with history, anthropology, political science, and moral psychology. Much of my fieldwork was in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where I co-founded Marakuja Research and built partnerships that allow me to study from customary chiefdom power to the internal organization of militias and the informal economies of state officials. My projects use randomized interventions, historical reconstruction, and ethnographic immersion, whatever is most useful. Listen here to Podcast.
Teaching: In Spring 2025, I taught PhD Political Economy of Development with Eduardo Montero, and Master Power and “Development.“
Cinema: In 2019, I was featured in award-winning documentary Congo Calling (The Guardian) directed by Stephan Hilpert.
Pedagogy: In 2024, was voted the Outstanding Faculty of the Year by Harris students, and also to deliver the school’s Last Lecture. Read here: Last Lecture.
On neutrality and responsibility of academics: About Neutrality.
Photo: On the rocks of Northern Spain (Genaratxu, Portu Zaharra: 43.350, -3.015)
Topoetymology: Sánchez is not a middle name.
My first (given) name is Raúl in Spanish, Raoul in French. It ultimately derives from a Germanic name meaning “counsel” and “wolf.”
My last name (surname) is SÁNCHEZ DE LA SIERRA. In Spain, naming conventions follow a two-surname system: people carry two surnames, traditionally the first inherited from the father and the second from the mother. Sánchez is my first surname, inherited from my father. It means descendant of Sancho, derived from Sanctius, meaning “socially sanctioned” or “morally respected.” It is not a title, and its origin is neither noble nor theological, relax. De la Sierra is my second surname, inherited from my mother. It’s not noble either. It just means “from the mountains.”
The mountains of northern Spain are where I’m from (not just “originally from”). In our family, the name De la Sierra traces to the area of Arnuero, in eastern Cantabria, at least as far back as the 1700s, though it could originate anywhere in the Cantabrian system, including the Picos de Europa. Historically, the area around Arnuero was a rural agro-pastoral zone, centered on cattle raising, smallholder farming, and communal land use. Arnuero itself likely derives from the ancient arn- root of Atlantic Europe, associated with water and rugged land and often attributed to early Celtic or pre-Celtic substrates in northern Iberia.
De la Sierras used to live in the house to the right at the turn of the previous century and until recently:
Raúl SÁNCHEZ DE LA SIERRA 