proghg-literature-synthesis

Literature Synthesis (proghg-literature-synthesis)

When to trigger

• The route is set (commission or submission) and it is time to read the subfield thoroughly
• Reading feels unsystematic; you fear missing a key intervention or a whole theoretical tradition
• You have many works but no way to weigh, compare, or set their arguments against each other
• A referee at PiHG is likely to ask "why did you omit X / the Y tradition / the recent turn to Z?"

Coverage discipline: read the subfield critically, not a convenience sample

A PiHG review's credibility rests on the reader's belief that you read everything that matters across theoretical traditions and that you read it critically. Human geography spans positivist, Marxist/political-economic, feminist, poststructural, postcolonial, more-than-human, and quantitative/GIScience traditions; reviewers notice when one is slighted. Build coverage systematically rather than from memory:

1. Seed set. Start from the subfield's canonical interventions and the references behind the topic/commission.
2. Forward + backward snowball. Backward: every work's reference list. Forward: who cites the seeds (Google Scholar / Scopus / Web of Science). Iterate until new searches stop turning up unseen important work (saturation).
3. Database + keyword sweep. Search Web of Science, Scopus, GeoBase / GEOBASE, and Google Scholar by topic keywords and by the names of the rival theoretical traditions, to catch work indexed under adjacent labels.
4. Mind-the-traditions coverage. Deliberately sweep the political-economic, feminist, poststructural / cultural, postcolonial, more-than-human, and quantitative / GIScience strands, not only the tradition you know best — siloing by tradition is a recurring PiHG referee complaint.
5. Recent + adjacent + prior reports. Include recent and forthcoming work (the frontier), the bordering literatures the subfield draws on, and the existing PiHG progress reports on the area (so you build on, not duplicate, the standing series).
6. Saturation log. Record when each search stops yielding new must-cite work — this is your documented evidence of coverage for proghg-comprehensiveness-and-balance and proghg-transparency-and-reproducibility.

From reading to critical synthesis (not summary)

Summarizing is restating each work; synthesizing is making the works argue with each other. Maintain an evidence matrix as you read:

This matrix is the raw material for the conceptual framework, the debate-mapping exhibits, and the even-handed treatment of controversies. Crucially, you read critically (you are the subfield's appraiser-of-record for the wider discipline); you do not re-do the empirical work.

Checklist

• Seed set drawn from canonical interventions + the topic/commission references
• Forward and backward snowball iterated to saturation
• Web of Science / Scopus / GeoBase / Scholar swept by keyword and by theoretical tradition
• Political-economic, feminist, poststructural, postcolonial, more-than-human, quantitative strands all swept (no tradition silo)
• Recent/forthcoming work, adjacent literatures, and prior PiHG progress reports all included
• Saturation log records where searches stopped yielding new must-cites
• Evidence matrix captures claim/concept + tradition + move + critical appraisal + tensions
• Non-comparable positions flagged as such (not flattened into a false consensus)
• No major author/tradition/turn whose omission a referee could name

Anti-patterns

• Citing from memory or from a personal reading list (predictable coverage gaps)
• Summarizing work-by-work instead of synthesizing across positions
• Reading only one tradition and ignoring the rival schools (the tradition-silo failure)
• Flattening incommensurable conceptual positions into one "the literature argues…" claim
• Ignoring the standing PiHG progress reports on the area (looks like you missed the series)
• Re-doing or "correcting" the empirical work of the studies you read — a PiHG review appraises, it does not re-run

Output format

【Seed set】<canonical interventions + topic/commission references>
【Snowball status】backward/forward iterated to saturation? Y/N
【Databases swept】WoS / Scopus / GeoBase / Scholar — by keyword + tradition? Y/N
【Tradition coverage】political-economic + feminist + poststructural + postcolonial + more-than-human + quantitative? Y/N
【Frontier + adjacency + prior reports】recent work, bordering literatures, prior PiHG reports included? Y/N
【Saturation evidence】<where searches stopped yielding new must-cites>
【Evidence matrix】rows ready with claim / tradition / move / appraisal / tension? Y/N
【Coverage risks】<any author/tradition/turn an omission referee could name>
【Next step】→ proghg-organizing-framework (impose the conceptual spine on the matrix)