The Role of the Planning Scholar: Research, Conflict, and Social Change

While a recurring theme in planning scholarship has been to characterize the role of the planning practitioner in society, less attention has focused on the evolving role of the planning scholar. This paper provides planning researchers with a framework to identify the scholarly roles that they have assumed when carrying out research and to understand the implications associated with their decisions. In particular, it shows how the different roles that planning scholars adopt are intricately linked with the goals, epistemologies, audience, sources of conflict, and potential impact of their research.