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aaag-literature-positioning

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Use when positioning an Annals of the American Association of Geographers manuscript in the literature — engaging geographic scholarship across the relevant area and the cross-cutting debates Annals readers expect. Frames the gap and the conversation; it does not design the study.

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Source SKILL.md: https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills/blob/HEAD/Annals-of-the-American-Association-of-Geographers-Skills/skills/aaag-literature-positioning/SKILL.md

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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

AreaConversations to engageCommon gap to claim
Methodsspatial dependence, MAUP/scale, uncertainty, geocomputationinference distortion others ignore
Humanthe relevant social-spatial theory (urban, economic, political, cultural)a relational/spatial mechanism missed
Nature-Societypolitical ecology, land-system science, hazards/resilienceone-sided treatments of coupled systems
Physicalprocess literature in the subsystem + RS/measurementa process or scale gap in the evidence

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