When sustainability misdiagnoses rural life in social consequences of palm oil policies from Indonesian villages

Abstract Sustainable palm oil policies are increasingly promoted as a solution to environmental and social problems in rural areas, particularly in Indonesia. However, these policies are generally formulated based on technocratic indicators and global governance frameworks that potentially oversimplify the complexities of rural social life. This study examines how sustainable palm oil policies, specifically the ISPO and RSPO, shape the social life of rural communities in Indonesia. The study aims to go beyond conventional assessments of policy effectiveness by positioning sustainability as a problem-framing mechanism that can potentially lead to misdiagnosis of rural social realities in Indonesia. This study uses a qualitative, comparative approach based on secondary data, through policy misdiagnosis (commonly interpret as the mismatch between policy problem framing and the empirical social conditions) in the flow scheme: problem recognition, policy framing, policy (mis)diagnosis, policy design, implementation to outcomes. The analysis focuses on several oil palm villages in the provinces of Riau, Central Kalimantan, and South Sumatra, representing a variety of production models, institutional contexts, and rural social dynamics, and is conducted through thematic coding. The results indicate that sustainable palm oil policies have produced uneven and ambiguous social impacts. While formal adherence to sustainability standards increases institutional visibility and access to certain resources, these policies often ignore local livelihood strategies, social relations, and customary arrangements, giving rise to partial exclusion and new social differentiation. This study contributes to rural sociology and sustainability governance by framing policy–reality gaps in villages as problems of policy misdiagnosis.