Staff Profile

Dr A. Maria A. Kastrinou, BA, PhD

Contact Dr A. Maria A. Kastrinou (email at a.m.a.kastrinou@durham.ac.uk)

Research Interests

My research is anchored in political anthropology and Middle Eastern studies, and I am specifically interested in the anthropology of the state, power and politics, minorities and sectarianism, and the body as a field of struggle. For my PhD, Intimate bodies, violent struggles: The poetics and politics of nuptiality in Syria, I conducted extended ethnographic fieldwork in Syria looking at the formation and dynamics of power relations within and between the Druze religious community, the state, and middle-class intellectuals. This research informs and enriches my on-going anthropological engagement in the region: the location and analysis of those contentious public arenas in which local religious communities, authoritarian state policies, and agents of neo-liberal globalisation converge and collide; thus working toward a grounded empirical depiction of contemporary social and political struggles in Syria and the wider area.

Research Groups

Department of Anthropology

• Public Culture in Theory and Practice Research Group

Research Interests

• Middle East and Syria
• Druze and Islam
• Minorities and sectarianism
• Power and politics
• Anthropology of the state
• The body
• Marriage and ritual
• Art and dance

Teaching Areas

• Cultures and Clasifications (level 2)
• Current Issues in Socio-Cultural Anthropology (level 3)
• People and Cultures (level 1)
• Ways of Life (level 1)

Selected Publications

Articles: magazine

• Kastrinou Theodoropoulou, Maria (2011). The marriage of Cadmus and Harmony and the burial of the martyrs: Syrian dances in the Arab spring. Jadaliyya (June 6).

Journal papers: academic

• Kastrinou Theodoropoulou, A. M. (2012). A Different Struggle for Syria: Becoming Young in the Middle East. Mediterranean Politics 17(1): 59-76.
• Kastrinou Theodoropoulou, A. M. A. (2010). The theatre of the not-so obscure: cooking as unfolding. ELiSS 3(2): 18-23.
• Kastrinou Theodoropoulou, A. M. A. (2009). Editorial Note: Political anthropology and the fabrics of resistance. Durham Anthropology Journal 16(2): 3-7.
• Kastrinou Theodoropoulou, A. M. A. (2009). Setting the Syrian stage: Dance between pleasure and power. Durham Anthropology Journal 16(1): 3-12.
• Kastrinou Theodoropoulou, A. M. A. (2008). The Gift of the Code: the culture of an operating system. Durham Anthropology Journal 15(1): 106-164.

Books: reviews

• Kastrinou Theodoropoulou, A. M. A. (2011). George I. Thanopoulos, Nikos Gatsos and the Greek Folk Tradition: A hermeneutic study. (Athens: Graphopress, 2009). Folklore 122(2): 218-220.
• Kastrinou Theodoropoulou, A. M. A. (2009). Lawrence, Christopher M. 2007. Blood and Oranges: Immigrant Labor and European Markets in Rural Greece. Oxford: Berghahn Books. Durham Anthropology Journal (1742-2930): 76-77.

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Media Contacts

Available for media contact about:

• Identity, ethnicity and culture:
• Middle East:
• Conflict and resolution: