Why is deconstruction often called a poststructuralist approach?

Deconstruction is categorized as a poststructuralist approach primarily because it emerged as a critique of structuralism, a movement that sought to analyze cultural phenomena as general, scientific systems of signs.12

While structuralists attempted to develop objective "metalanguages" to describe these sign systems, deconstruction challenged the possibility of creating such detached, scientific frameworks. By questioning the fundamental conceptual "oppositions" in Western philosophy—such as speech versus writing or nature versus culture—deconstruction demonstrated that meaning is not fixed or transparent. Instead, it argued that meaning is created through a "play" of differences and is endlessly deferred, making the structuralist goal of a universal science of meaning unattainable.1324

Because deconstruction moved beyond the structuralist desire for stable, scientific structures and embraced skepticism regarding the ability of language to connect directly to an objective "truth" or "reality," it became a defining movement within poststructuralism.24