'Complex' world of Taliban home: Wife embraces Taliban 'brothers', asserts women's right to freedom

Award-winning photojournalist Elise Blanchard challenges stereotypical narratives about Afghan women in her book "In the House of a Taliban," presenting a nuanced portrait of life within a Taliban household. Through rare access and documented fieldwork in drought-stricken Badghis province, she traces how child marriage, gender-based violence, and women's freedoms are shaped by intersecting forces of patriarchy, poverty, climate change, and political instability.

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Eve Irvine is pleased to welcome Elise Blanchard, award-winning photojournalist and author of “Dans la Maison d’un Taliban” (In the House of a Taliban). Blanchard’s work challenges narratives that reduce Afghan women to passive victims. Drawing on rare access to a Taliban household, she describes a social landscape shaped by profound contradictions. In drought-stricken Badghis province, Blanchard traces child marriage through a chain of material pressures exacerbated by climate change. Gendered violence is explained through the prism of patriarchy, poverty, drought and political instability.

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'Complex' world of Taliban home: Wife embraces Taliban 'brothers', asserts women's right to freedom

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