Claire Doussard

Disabled Entrepreneurs: Stories, Spaces, and Ecosystems explores the lived experiences of entrepreneurs with physical and sensory disabilities. Drawing on original qualitative research, this interdisciplinary book combines insights from management studies, sociology, and geography to examine how structural barriers, spatial dynamics, and personal agency shape entrepreneurial journeys. Through rich narratives and empirical analysis, it challenges normative assumptions about both entrepreneurship and disability, providing a nuanced understanding of the intersection between professional practice and social inclusion. This book is characterized by three core features: its interdisciplinary framework, which integrates structural, spatial, and relational perspectives; its human-centered approach, which amplifies the voices of disabled entrepreneurs and highlights their challenges, strategies, and motivations; and its strong societal commitment to promoting equity and inclusion. Readers will gain valuable insights into entrepreneurial ecosystems, accessibility, and the role of place and mobility in shaping business development. The book also offers insights for policymakers, practitioners, and organizations seeking to foster inclusive entrepreneurship. Ideal for academics, researchers, and graduate students in management, entrepreneurship, disability studies, and human geography, this book also appeals to policymakers, nonprofit leaders, and disability advocates. Its global relevance ensures broad appeal across diverse contexts, making it a vital resource for advancing inclusive innovation and economic development.

With the onset of the Anthropocene Era, concern for the metabolism of various kinds of settlement has risen appreciably. Of particular concern in the study of architecture and urban design are metabolic contributions of flows of stocks that go into the construction and operation of settlements of one kind or another. This book is about a methodological approach that allows urban settlement patterns to be re-written, as it were, into water, energy and other material flows emanating from original sources in the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and so on, through various stages of transformation during settlement construction and operation and then on to end-of-life activities. In short, the methodology produces a so-called ‘cradle-to-grave’ account of the material aspects of urban settlement from which technological and design proposals can be crafted ameliorating and diminishing adverse impacts, as well as related outcomes such as embodied energy and carbon concentrations so deleterious to climate change and proliferation of other hyperobjects.