The literature review can feel like an impenetrable, mysterious part of the PhD process. Rabbit holes and reading, and even more filing away of things ‘to read’ that seem unlikely to reach the ‘read’ pile. This is a drawing together of some thoughts on what the literature review is useful for.
Firstly, the literature review is a way to demonstrate that there’s a gap in the literature your research, whether it’s for a PhD or other work is going to fill. Particularly with a PhD, where the emphasis is on demonstrating it is an original piece of work, the literature review is fundamental to showing there really is a gap in the research. As more research is conducted, that becomes more salient – one of my supervisors noted early on that back in the day people could decide to do a PhD on gravity and could just crack on as so little research had been done. Now, with more research it can be more difficult to demonstrate there really is a gap so more reading and justifying of the gap might be needed.
From there, the literature review can also help develop the methodological approach. This can be drawing upon research methods directly by providing the standard approaches and helps provide the tools to be able to conduct the research. Looking at other pieces of work can also provide a way to test the pros and cons of different approaches. I absolutely loved the Kuijer (2017) piece ‘‘That’s when we started using the living room’: Lessons from a local history of domestic heating in the United Kingdom’ which used a small number of interviews and archival research to generate a really rich piece of work. That definitely contributed to my wanting to include archival research in the design of my PhD. It was also a reassuring piece for me too, it felt like they were able to generate some really interesting perspectives, showing the push and pull between how people live and the development of the Parker Morris standards over time, with what seemed like a relatively small set of research methods. This comparison with other people’s research also allows for your own design choices to be justified – either because they are in line with what others are doing or it can be argued that your own research explores things in a way that has been neglected to date.
The literature review also allows you to build upon the work that has been done. Having more of a sense of the literature means you get an understanding of where the foundations for your work are stronger or weaker. The overall shape of my PhD hasn’t changed but the relative weight has as I’ve done more reading. Whereas at the start I was persuaded to the view that the meaning of home is more contested, and therefore trying to understand that was more important, as I’ve read more and reflected on the reading I’ve come back to the view that the meaning of home is more consistent. By contrast, I brought in an aspect to the longer literature review which looks at what makes people take action, and this is an area where persistence is better understood than change. As such, while I’m still interested in the meaning of home and how people use that to make decisions about their homes, the elements around what gets people to take action came to seem more important. While I was doing this reading I was also starting to draft the outline of the survey, in time the survey shifted to focus more on the active elements.
Reading across the landscape the PhD is situated in is also a way to get an understanding of the theoretical and conceptual terms that do or could relate. These provide different ways of understanding the subject – for instance, reading about regulatory capitalism gave me a different way of seeing how the retrofit sector has developed over time. Rather than necessarily accepting the framing those in the retrofit sector might have been the private and public sectors, that theory allowed me to see things differently and reflect on the tensions and dynamics that can affect how seemingly private sector organisations have business models predicated entirely upon delivery of publicly funded works.
Theoretical approaches can also help ensure different perspectives are considered. Theory can draw attention to power dynamics – within research approaches as well as within the area that’s being explored. The research can also challenge your thinking around the seeming neutrality of terms, framing or processes which in turn helps explore the subject a bit further.
It’s also been really enjoyable, and mortifying and enraging, to read things which really demonstrate how taken for granted things within an area might be totally wrong. Reading about how advice services which talk about the temperatures people should heat rooms in their homes to are suggesting much higher temperatures than most people enjoy when left to their own devices, is in fact helping to shift expectations – creating a feedback loop which sees energy consumption increase was such a terrifying read. I was similarly really surprised to discover how little or sustained success an appeal to norms and values has, in any context, not just the environmental, on the extent to which people change their behaviour. In the environmental sector that can be quite a focus and actually it seems to be a bit of a waste of time.
I think too that the literature review also creates a space where you are working on developing the PhD and the different aspects of it – the aims, objectives, research questions and methods – in a way that feels a bit tangential at times. You’re sort of looking directly at those aspects to be able to gauge whether a particular article or book contributes to the development of the PhD, but looking at the literature also allows for those areas to shift as you find yourself drawn to theories or aspects of the research. That iterative work can feel, because it is, quite slow and frustrating, but it also helps to provide more of a grounding for the research itself. It can also at times feel astonishing and beautiful, like the world is being shown to you anew.
Taken together, the literature provides a way to show your workings. In some other work contexts you might have to undertake a budget reconciliation or demonstrate the actual position on budget or delivery. In that way you might move from general statements of the position to being able to evidence spend or delivery down to a couple of decimal places. The literature review is a bit like that – moving from general statements of the position to being able to evidence your perspective by pointing to other pieces of work and explaining whether you agree or disagree.
