This study offers a regional bibliometric analysis of palm oil research in Southeast Asia from 2000 to 2025, integrating performance metrics with networks of co-authorship, co-occurrence, co-citation, and bibliographic coupling. The findings indicate a concentrated commodity-region nexus centered on "palm oil," "Southeast Asia," and "Indonesia," featuring significant clusters related to deforestation, peat emissions, and biodiversity. The overlay and density views demonstrate a thematic transition from initial biofuel and commodities perspectives to those focused on climate, conservation, and land-use analysis. Country and affiliation networks indicate that internationally focused collaboration is mostly controlled by a limited number of brokers from the UK and US, along with Malaysian hubs, whilst intra-ASEAN connections are very sparse. Practical consequences involve reallocating financing towards social-institutional sectors (livelihoods, labor, finance, traceability) and establishing multi-national consortia to broaden cooperation. The paper presents a clear, replicable science-mapping methodology and conceptualizes palm-oil scholarship as an interconnected multiplex changing at varying rates. Limitations encompass database and linguistic biases, disambiguation inaccuracies, and sensitivity to parameters.
Loso Judijanto (Sat,) studied this question.