Urban marginalization experiences and social etiology of Indigenous migrants' sleep disturbance

In recent decades, many Indigenous people in Taiwan have left their tribes and migrated to cities. However, there has been limited research focused on understanding the psychological processes that link these migrants' experiences in urban environments and their sleep, a crucial but overlooked aspect of health.

This study conducted and qualitatively analyzed 40 interviews with urban Indigenous migrants aged 25-60 to examine how everyday life experiences in cities shape their sleep.

The analysis finds that urban Indigenous migrants have a high prevalence of sleep disturbance that is attributable to three psychosocial mechanisms that result from experiences of marginalization in their urban lives: (a) enduring stress and unstable schedules in the journey toward better opportunities; (b) feeling marginalized from the ways and cultural logic of urban life that normalizes a fast pace and prioritizes efficiency; and (c) having limited psychosocial resources from an urban social network that is weaker and creates alienation. These psychosocial mechanisms fundamentally interfered with urban Indigenous migrants' sleep time, generated heightened stress, and lowered their resilience during difficult times, which in turn increased the likelihood of sleep disturbance.

The findings (a) document the underlying psychosocial processes of marginalization experiences that cause sleep disturbance among urban Indigenous migrants in Taiwan and (b) contribute empirical evidence from a non-Western society to the global literature on Indigenous health and psychology and to the literature on the psychosocial studies of minority well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).