Literature Positioning: Whose Conversation, and How You Challenge It (amr-literature-positioning)

When to trigger

• You have a puzzle but cannot name the theory stream you are arguing with
• Your literature section reads like a survey ("scholars have studied...")
• You cite broadly but engage no single conversation deeply
• A reader asks "so which theory are you extending, exactly?"

The principle: engage, don't summarize

AMR is a journal of conversations. Every accepted paper enters a specific theoretical conversation and moves it. The literature section is not a catalog of who-did-what — it is the set-up of the tension your theory will resolve. Two questions govern everything: