Anchored in political anthropology, my research focuses on sectarian politics and national belonging, religion, state, conflict and energy in the Middle East and South-Eastern Mediterranean. For my PhD, I conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork research in Syria (2008–2011) looking at contested identities and politics between the Druze sect and the Syrian state. In response to the ongoing war in Syria, my research has incorporated political economy and historical approaches in ongoing projects on the politics of energy and resource conflict in Syria and Lebanon (Durham Energy Institute 2013-2014; AHRC/ESRC Conflict grant 2016-2017), as well as new fieldwork with Syrian refugees in Greece and stateless Syrians in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights (BRIEF Award 2015-ongoing).
Kastrinou, AMA., Fakher El-Deen, S. and Emery, SB. (2020) 'The stateless (ad)vantage? Resistance, land and rootedness in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights'. Territory, Politics, Governance, 9 (5). pp. 636 - 655. ISSN: 2162-2671
Kastrinou, M. (2018) 'From a window in Jaramana: Imperial sectarianism and the impact of war on a Druze neighbourhood in Syria', in Hinnebusch, R. and Imady, O. (eds.) The Syrian Uprising 2011-2014: Domestic Origins and Early Trajectory. Abingdon : Routledge. pp. 271 - 289. ISBN 10: 1138310549. ISBN 13: 9781138310544.
Kastrinou, AMA. (2016) 'Power, sect and state in Syria: The politics of marriage and identity amongst the Druze'. London: I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd