Literature Positioning (gec-literature-positioning)

GEC is interdisciplinary. A submission that engages only one literature (only climate science, or only one governance debate) reads as off-fit. This skill helps you locate the paper at the intersection of the literatures GEC readers expect and define the gap your contribution fills.

When to trigger

• Drafting or revising the introduction and the "gap" the paper fills
• A reviewer said the framing "misses a key literature" or is "too disciplinary"
• Reconciling a domain literature (e.g., land-use science) with a social-science literature (e.g., governance)
• Choosing which debates to foreground for a broad, policy-relevant audience

How GEC papers position themselves

1. Engage at least two literatures. Typically a domain literature (climate, water, land, food, oceans, biodiversity) plus a human-dimensions literature (vulnerability, governance, behavior, transitions, political ecology, environmental economics). Show how they meet on your question.
2. State the gap as a contribution, not a hole. "X is understudied" is weak; "the dominant framing of X cannot explain Y, and here is a framework / test that does" is strong.
3. Cite across communities. Engage the international, comparative, and policy literatures GEC draws on — not just your home subfield or your own region.
4. Set up the framework. Positioning should hand off cleanly to gec-conceptual-framework: the literature gap is what the framework is built to close.

Cross-literature framing

If your home base is…	Reach the rest of GEC's readership by…
A biophysical domain	foregrounding the social drivers/consequences and the governance question
Governance / policy	grounding the claim in the specific environmental change and its scale
Economics	connecting valuation/incentives to institutions, equity, and behavior
Qualitative case study	drawing the transferable mechanism, not just the local narrative

Anti-patterns

• A single-literature review that ignores the human-dimensions or domain side of the question
• Citing only your own group / one region / one disciplinary silo
• Framing the gap as mere absence ("no one has looked at …") with no conceptual stake
• A literature review disconnected from the framework and the eventual policy claim

Positioning objections GEC editors and referees raise

Because GEC sits at the intersection of environmental social science, governance, and a domain literature, the fastest desk-reject is a paper that engages only one of them. These are the framing objections and their fixes.

Objection	What it signals	The GEC fix
"Misses a key literature"	One side of the intersection ignored	Add the missing human-dimensions or domain body and show where it meets your question
"Too disciplinary / off-fit"	Reads as a home-subfield paper	Reframe so the contribution is legible to a governance, vulnerability, or transitions reader
"Gap is mere absence"	"Not studied in country X" with no stake	Recast as: the dominant framing cannot explain Y, and here is the framework or test that does
"Provincial citation base"	Only own group / one region cited	Engage the international, comparative, and policy literatures GEC draws on
"Disconnected from the eventual claim"	Review unrelated to framework or policy	Make the gap the exact thing the framework is built to close

Worked micro-example (illustrative)

A land-use change paper is first framed as "filling a gap in remote-sensing estimates of deforestation in one basin."

• Off-fit framing: engages only the remote-sensing literature; the contribution is a better measurement of a biophysical process. A GEC editor screens it toward a land-science venue.
• GEC-fit reframing: positions the paper at the meeting of the land-change-science literature and the environmental-governance literature, arguing that prevailing governance accounts predict the wrong spatial pattern of clearing. The gap becomes a contested explanatory claim, not an empty cell on a map. Roughly 60% of the citations now span communities beyond the home subfield (illustrative).
• Payoff: the same data now answers a human-dimensions question — which institutions actually shape land-use drivers — that GEC readers care about.

Calibration anchors (hedged)

• Two-literature bar: a GEC introduction should make at least one domain and one human-dimensions literature meet on the question; a single-silo review reads as off-fit.
• Global-significance bar: the gap should matter beyond one region; a local-only "not yet studied here" rarely clears it.
• Confirm the journal's current scope and aims statement on its author guidelines before finalising the framing, as editorial emphasis shifts over time.

Output format

【Literatures engaged】domain + human-dimensions (name them)
【Intersection】where they meet on this question
【Gap as contribution】the framing your paper changes or the test it settles
【Cross-community cites】beyond home subfield / region? [Y/N]
【Next】gec-conceptual-framework

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — data sources and reference managers
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — GEC scope and interdisciplinary remit