Lucas Lyko Named RGS Social and Cultural Geography Research Group Undergraduate Dissertation Prize Runner-Up

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The Royal Geographical Society's Social and Cultural Geography Research Group has named Lucas Lyko as the runner-up of the 2022 undergraduate dissertation prize for his dissertation: '"I don't have the luxury of being able to do nothing": Exploring Temporalities and Navigations of Everyday Mobility Through the Experiences of People with Multiple Sclerosis.'

Lucas recently graduated from the BA in Geography degree programmme at the University of Oxford's School of Geography and the Environment (SoGE). His dissertation is a very personal exploration of the ways in which people with multiple sclerosis go about their everyday mobility.

Commenting on his work, Lucas said: "Members of the MS Therapy Centre in Bedford that my mum attends generously contributed to interviews, travel diaries and focus groups. The project challenges a simple mobility/immobility binary, where the latter is often seen as something fundamentally or inherently 'bad'. In particular, it explores how the tensions of everyday mobility with MS are intertwined with time - long-term progressions and short-term symptoms - which offers a new contribution and understanding for research on mobility and disability. Such research not only forces scholars to question different ways of being mobile beyond an able (male, white, straight, middle-class etc.) body, but also offers chances for planners and policymakers to consider the highly diverse needs and experiences of the people they serve. I, for one, have become much more aware of otherwise forgotten things like dropped curbs at crossings or the social encounters of asking for a seat on the bus. For me, at least, these will be things I will remain aware of in my further study and work thereafter."

The judges regarded Lucas's dissertation as 'an outstanding piece of work' adding, 'there is clear potential for this to be developed into a high-quality academic publication which would make an original contribution to existing scholarship on mobility, temporality, and health.'

"Geographers have already carried out extensive research at the small, intimate scale of individual people's everyday mobility, but I wanted to contribute to a gap in work on disability which Dr Jennie Middleton has been working on already. MS is a progressive condition, but also a constantly changing one in its everyday symptoms, which had not been previously considered and which I thought could make a useful contribution to our awareness of differences in how people go about and experience everyday mobility." Lucas continues.

On receiving the award, he said: "I am really honoured to have been nominated for the prize by the SoGE and of course to have been made the runner up this year. It is a generous acknowledgment of the complexity I tried to capture in my dissertation."

Lucas recently started an MSc in Urban Studies at the Université libre de Bruxelles and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and wants to contribute to environmentally sustainable and socially fair transitions in mobility in the future.

Each year, the Royal Geographical Society's Research Groups recognise outstanding work from undergraduate and postgraduate students at higher education institutions both in the UK and overseas. More information about the prize is available on the RGS website.

Lucas Lyko Named RGS Social and Cultural Geography Research Group Undergraduate Dissertation Prize Runner-Up

The Royal Geographical Society's Social and Cultural Geography Research Group has named Lucas Lyko as the runner-up of the 2022 undergraduate dissertation prize for his dissertation: "I don't have the luxury of being able to do nothing": Exploring Temporalities and Navigations of Everyday Mobility Through the Experiences of People with Multiple Sclerosis.'

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