Shifts in academic planning thought which became evident by 1980 in cluded skepticism that causal reason ing could serve as the cornerstone of sound planning practice. Some theo rists turned to examine the social construction of reality via communi cation and culture, and to ask what the implications would be for plan ning of noncausal perspectives. This article sets out to describe a contin uum of positions on postmodernism, a term which encompasses some nonpositivist approaches to under standing social life. A description of postmodernist thinking as decon structive, antifoundationalist, non dualistic, and encouraging of plural ism is provided, and some of the analytic themes associated with these characteristics are shown to form the crux of the four articles that follow.
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