Subterranean Traces: Unearthing Death and Disposability in the Ruins of the Mine

Abstract: Drawing on ethnography, interviews, and archives, this essay charts intertwined histories of Black migrant labor, Chinese indenture, resource extraction, and race-making in the ruins of South Africa's gold mines. Connecting past to present, it examines the zama zama , informal migrant miners who work in abandoned mines, and the unmarked graves of Chinese mineworkers to understand how histories of extractive capitalism and racialized disposability reemerge, illustrating the enduring force of not only these histories but also their entanglements. It utilizes a subterranean archive of disappearing figures and buried traces and theorizes the afterlife of death.