For Professor Wendy Harcourt, it was a "shimmering moment", an intense immersion in an interconnected world that brought humans and other living beings together: in 2002, the researcher swam with sea turtles near Heron Island on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. This "shimmering" moment inspires the ceremonial lecture that the Australian is delivering at the University of Passau on the occasion of the conferral of her honorary doctorate. Her subject: the liveability of our planet in the Global South.
The audience in the lecture room at the Nikolakloster on the University of Passau campus is international. Many students on the M.A. Development Studies programme have come, as Harcourt played a key role in establishing the course. In his speech, Vice President Professor Harald Kosch even describes her as a "co-founder" – together with the Passau development sociologist Professor Martina Padmanabhan and development economist Professor Michael Grimm. "You too are now one of our doctors," says Professor Kosch, addressing Harcourt, before adding with a glance around the room: "May your lecture inspire all of your students."
Harcourt refers to the recently published report by the Climate Impact Lab. The forecast is alarming: according to the report, the effects of an exceptionally strong El Niño between June 2026 and February 2027 could cause around 451,000 additional deaths from extreme heat worldwide. The regions particularly affected would be in Africa, South and Southeast Asia and South America.
Stories of hope against doomsday scenarios
"We are inundated daily with doomsday scenarios," says Harcourt. "Instead, we need narratives that do not overwhelm us." Storytelling, says the feminist ecologist, is something deeply human. It makes it possible to create other worlds. It appeals not only to the intellect but also to the emotions. In this case: hope.
The "shimmering moment" with the sea turtles chimes with this. "We need forms of co-habitability that respect and nurture rather than exploit our own and others’ vulnerability," she says. The sea turtles are not only important shapers of their ecosystems; they also inspired Indigenous communities thousands of years ago.
Harcourt offers insights into research projects that bring together the knowledge of Indigenous peoples with that of the researchers. She speaks of a considerable body of knowledge that could also help in responding to today's climate crises. In the view of the researcher, this could make it possible to better understand a world that consists of countless relationships – of "shimmering connections".
New perspectives on the dilemmas of liveability
Wendy Harcourt has worked for many years at the interface of environmental humanities, feminist theory and the politics of sustainable development. She established the field of research known as "Feminist Political Ecology", which integrates questions of gender justice into research on sustainable development, among other things.
In this way, she also inspires others, for example at the University of Passau: Harcourt's lecture marks the opening of a lecture series in the winter semester 2026/27 on the topic of “Habitability in the Global South”. As part of the emerging research area "Sustainable Transformation", the researchers ask how habitability is negotiated in a world in which humans, animals, plants and other life forms are intertwined with one another. In view of escalating crises and postcolonial inequalities, new, intersectional and future-oriented perspectives are needed. Researchers and students from three faculties are involved, from the humanities and social sciences through to business and economics.
But what, then, does all of this have to do with the green sea turtles?
Green sea turtles tell a story of hope, the kind of story that Professor Harcourt wants to tell. For a long time, the species was regarded as highly endangered. Climate change took an additional toll. This is because, in these animals, the temperature of the sand during the incubation period determines the sex of the offspring. The warmer the sand, the more females hatch. On the northern Great Barrier Reef in Australia, more than 99 percent of the juveniles examined are now female.
At the same time, they are an example of a remarkable success story in species conservation. After all, the green sea turtle is now no longer regarded as endangered worldwide. Its populations have recovered over the past decades. In addition to international conservation efforts, unique collaborations between researchers, Indigenous communities, activists and policymakers also played their part. These stand for a perspective that has shaped Harcourt's academic work for many years: not to view humans and nature as separate from one another but to place their manifold relationships at the centre.
This text was machine-translated from German.
Professor Wendy Harcourt is the second person to have received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Social and Educational Sciences at the University of Passau. In his commendation, Dean Professor Oliver Hidalgo paid tribute to her merits in broadening academic perspectives on ethical questions and gender justice. Harcourt, he said, contributed decisively to ensuring that ecological crises are always also considered in connection with societal relations of power and social hierarchies.
The laudators also highlighted Harcourt's long-standing connections to the University of Passau. Vice President Professor Harald Kosch honoured her as a "co-founder" of the international M.A. Development Studies programme, which has brought students from more than 65 countries worldwide to Passau since 2015. Professor Martina Padmanabhan, who was likewise part of the founding team, is also connected to the researcher through the European network "WEGO: Wellbeing, Ecology, Gender and cOmmunity". It was funded as an Innovative Training Network through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 programme (grant number 764908).
The holder of the Chair of Critical Development Studies in Southeast Asia honoured Harcourt as a "pioneer in thinking through the manifold dilemmas of habitability" and as the founder of the field of Feminist Political Ecology. This field links questions of ecological sustainability with the analysis of power relations and gender justice. As a symbolic gift, Professor Padmanabhan presented a specially designed doctoral cap on which key stages of Harcourt's academic work were depicted.
Professor Padmanabhan had a further surprise in store for Harcourt: two video messages from former doctoral candidates. Dr Siti Maimunah sent greetings from Indonesia. Her teaching, she said, is inspired by Harcourt's research. As proof, she held a book up to the camera with the title "Our Weapon is the Traditional Ritual". It shows how Indigenous women fight against environmental destruction, mining and land grabbing. Their means are ceremonies, mantras and cultural practices. The second message came from the United Kingdom, from Dr Enid Still, who now researches and teaches at the British University of Greenwich.
About Professor Wendy Harcourt
Professor Wendy Harcourt is a renowned Australian ecologist and feminist scholar. Until her retirement in April 2026, she held the position of Professor of Gender, Diversity and Sustainable Development at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam for 14 years. For 23 years, she headed the Society for International Development in Rome. In March 2026, she delivered her farewell lecture at the ISS in The Hague, entitled "Connecting with Care: Pedagogies for transformation", on the ethical and pedagogical questions raised by the concept of care. Shortly beforehand, she published her monograph "Conundrums of Care: Feminist Entanglements in Critical Development Studies". She lives in Rome as an academic author.
