Literature Positioning (aaag-literature-positioning)

The Annals expects a paper to enter a geographic conversation, not merely to cite a domain literature with a few geography references appended. Position the work so its area's readers, and geographers more broadly, recognize the debate it advances.

When to trigger

• Writing or revising the introduction/related-work and framing the gap
• A reviewer said "you've missed the geography literature" or "this reads as [other discipline]"
• Deciding which conversations to foreground for the declared area's editor and reviewers

Position in two registers

1. Within the area. Engage the live debate your contribution moves — e.g., for Methods, the spatial-dependence / scale / uncertainty literature; for Nature-Society, political ecology / land change / resilience; for Human, the relevant social-theoretic strand; for Physical, the process literature in your subsystem.
2. Across geography. Connect to a cross-cutting geographic concern (scale, place, region, space-time, environment-society, spatial data) so a reader outside the subfield sees the stake.

The "geographic conversation" test

Name the single closest prior account and write one sentence: "Prior work holds ___; we show instead/additionally ___, which matters for [geographic debate] because ___." If the closest prior account is in another discipline, you must still show how the contribution lands in geography.

Engage geographic theory, not just topical citations

• Cite the geographers who own the concept you use (place, scale, region, territory, landscape, spatial dependence, environment-society), not only the domain-science sources.
• Treat geography's internal pluralism as a feature: a Human-Geography framing and a quantitative framing of the "same" phenomenon are different conversations — pick the one your method serves.
• Avoid the "literature dump." Map the field into 2-4 positions and place yourself among them.

Area-aware positioning cues

Worked micro-example (illustrative)

A draft on migration and climate cites a long climate-science literature and one geography reference.

Problem: reads as climate science with a geography citation appended (Human/Nature-Society editors
  will ask "where is the geography conversation?")
Repair: map the field into positions — (a) climate-determinist accounts, (b) political-ecology accounts
  stressing vulnerability-as-produced, (c) mobility/place-attachment accounts; place the paper among them
Closest prior account: the determinist reading; the contrast sentence states what the paper shows instead
Cross-cutting stake: how place attachment mediates environmental "push" — legible to migration, hazards,
  and political-ecology readers alike

The revision enters a geographic debate and gives each area's reader a position to react to.

Checklist

• The closest prior account is named, not a vague "the literature"
• The field is mapped into positions; the paper is placed among them
• Geographic theory/owners are cited, not only domain-science sources
• A cross-cutting geographic stake is articulated for outside-subfield readers
• The gap is framed as a contribution to a geographic debate, not a topical novelty

Anti-patterns

• A domain-literature review with geography references bolted on at the end
• "First study to map X in [place]" framed as a contribution with no conceptual stake
• Ignoring the geographers who coined the concepts the paper leans on
• Undifferentiated literature dump with no positions and no closest rival

Output format

【Area conversation】the live debate this paper moves
【Closest prior account】name + the one-sentence contrast
【Cross-cutting stake】why geographers outside the subfield care
【Geographic theory engaged】concepts + their owners
【Next】aaag-theory-building

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/exemplars/library.md — how Annals papers stake a position in a geographic debate
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — scope and area definitions