What does global production sound like? Can the realities of work be captured not in reports, numbers or images, but through the everyday rhythms and sounds of the workers who stitch our clothes? Our sound map of Jordan’s largest industrial zone for clothing production, Al-Hassan, attempts this. We invite listeners to immerse themselves in the sonic environment of the almost 30,000 migrants working there.
The walled Al-Hassan industrial zone was established in northern Jordan as a result of US free trade policies. Inaugurated in 1998, it was the first so-called Qualified Industrial Zone (QIZ) under a scheme that extended US-Israel free trade advantages to extra-territorial production spaces in Jordan.
The idea was to foster Arab-Israeli normalisation through economic integration. Israel and Jordan had signed a peace treaty four years earlier, in 1994. The hope was that, by attracting labour-intensive Israeli industries like clothing production, the two countries would become more closely knitted together.
