I'm not sure why you say that a systematic literature review relies on a positivist or quantitative tradition. As far as I know, both qualitative and quantitative research have long relied on literature reviews. In both cases, one of the primary functions of a literature review is to connect the current study to prior work. Even the most exploratory work in qualitative research should demonstrate that such exploration is well justified.

You might also want to look at this recent thread:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_use_of_literature_in_quantitative_and_qualitative_research

Yes there are countless examples of qual SRs. E.g. -Article A descriptive review of qualitative studies in first episode psychosis

Also qual data can be synthesised just like quant data.

If by "systematic review" you mean something similar to a meta-analysis in quantitative research, then the matching term in qualitative research is "qualitative synthesis."

Dear researcher,

I find this article worth reading inorder to answer your question

http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/BPL_Images/Content_store/Sample_chapter/9780632052844/001-025%5B1%5D.pdf

There are a range of systematic approaches to literature reviews that are particularly appropriate for qualitative research methods. You may wish to look at those suggested by Alston & Bowles (2012), which challenge the 'evidence hierarchies' used in traditional systematic reviews and are responsive to the issue that approaches such as RCTs are not suited to open systems research. One such approach is the 'extended' or 'mixed methods' systematic review.

I would look up metasynthesis methodologies. It is a metaanalysis like technique specifically for qualitative studies.

Sandelowsky works will help you

https://www.researchgate.net/file.PostFileLoader.html?id...assetKey..

QUAL methodology is best fit for Qualitative research

Hi! I recommend you one of my articles. Hope you find it useful.

Systematic review is a approach to gather the most comprehensive evidence as possible, so it can be applied for both quantitative and qualitative studies.

For example, the below study has searched for quantitative, qualitative and mixed-method research :

Article Views on traditional Chinese medicine amongst Chinese popula...

Hello David Morgan

I have a question for you. I am a bit confused. I am applying systematic review in my research and my philosophic perspective is interpretivism. from this angle I need to explore my participants perspectives. so before interacting with my participants, I am reviewing existing literature to find out what already been there. how does this fit into interpretivism view of this research. I mean doing systematic review before collecting data from participants. how can I connect these to epistemological view of this research? your help will be appreciated.

I personally have much more interest in how research is actually done, rather than philosophical speculations about the nature of knowledge (i.e., epistemology).

All research is unavoidably based on one's prior knowledge and beliefs, so doing a literature review will considered helpful by most researchers. The only school of qualitative research I know that opposes doing a literature review is Glaser's version of Grounded Theory, so if you are not pursuing his work, then there is no problem.