“Literature Review” vs “State of the Art”

A “state of the art” is a specific type of literature review, loosen from epistemological groundings and the (socio-economic, cultural, geographic, etc.) context, but bound to the recentness of articles dealing with the given technical matter.

In the “state of the art” whatever works, let's say, in China, MUST work in Sicily. Therefore practices and experiences coming from mentioned areas can be side-by-side in a bibliography of a work dealing with facts taking place in Kenya or Peru.

Behind this difference lies the huge difference between the technical approach (“state of the art”: there is just one united planet, perfectly described by mathematics and globally accepted methods and procedures) and the scientific approach (which is based on the specificities of the given context, and is per se multidisciplinary).

Communication is extremely hard when people have a different academic background...