The global turn has contributed to a revitalization of labor history. Historians have become increasingly attentive to the varied forms of labor commodification that existed under capitalism. Many historians have welcomed this approach which challenges the universalism of “free” wage labor. Critics, however, have warned that global labor history risks re-inscribing the power of capital at the expense of local specificities, particularly in terms of the plurality of labor’s worlds and its (dis)connections with capital. This is not a new debate within African studies. Since the 1980s, historians of Africa have questioned the privileging of wage labor at the expense of other forms of labor and the focus on (post)colonial workplace relations to the exclusion of other relational power structures which shaped the behavior of African men and women. This article takes up these debates by focusing on different forms of labor connected to the gold mining industry in colonial Ghana. The article argues that African men and women involved in the mining sector, including mineworkers, petty traders, and sex workers, responded to their experience of commodification in ways that were about more than just their status as abstract sellers of labor power. What emerges from this analysis is a more nuanced understanding of the strategies and aspirations of African labor which was connected to the mining sector. That is to say, where colonial officials saw working patterns that were purportedly symptomatic of the “lazy” and “ill-disciplined” character of African labor, this article demonstrates otherwise. The behavior of African labor associated with the mining sector was indicative of choices that were made in accordance with individual and collective needs connected to issues of class, gender, and generation, which, in turn, were “entangled” with capitalist market imperatives but not necessarily determined by them.

全球转向促进了劳工历史的复兴。历史学家越来越关注资本主义下存在的各种形式的劳动力商品化。许多历史学家对这种挑战“自由”雇佣劳动普遍主义的做法表示欢迎。然而，批评者警告说，全球劳工历史有可能以牺牲当地特殊性为代价，重新铭记资本的力量，特别是在劳工世界的多元化及其与资本的（脱）联系方面。这并不是非洲研究中的新争论。自 20 世纪 80 年代以来，非洲历史学家一直质疑以牺牲其他形式的劳动为代价的雇佣劳动特权，以及对（后）殖民工作场所关系的关注，而排除塑造非洲男性和女性行为的其他关系权力结构。本文通过重点关注与殖民地加纳金矿开采业相关的不同形式的劳动力来展开这些辩论。文章认为，参与采矿业的非洲男性和女性，包括矿工、小商贩和性工作者，对他们的商品化经历的反应不仅仅是他们作为抽象劳动力卖家的地位。通过这种分析，我们可以更细致地了解与采矿业相关的非洲劳动力的战略和愿望。也就是说，殖民官员认为工作模式据称是非洲劳工“懒惰”和“不守纪律”特征的症状，但本文却证明了相反的情况。非洲劳工与采矿业相关的行为表明，他们的选择是根据与阶级、性别和代际问题相关的个人和集体需求而做出的，这些选择反过来又与资本主义市场的要求“纠缠在一起”，但并非如此。必然由他们决定。