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On the project I'm currently working with, we have Apex Sharing Rules.
I see we are passing rowCause as a String everywhere.
But the values of these Strings look like API names.

Is there a typesafe way we can work with these?

Refer this documentation: Sharing a Record Using Apex

Apex sharing reasons are defined on an object's detail page. Each Apex sharing reason has a label and a name:

• The label displays in the Reason column when viewing the sharing for a record in the user interface. This label allows users and administrators to understand the source of the sharing. The label is also enabled for translation through the Translation Workbench.


• The name is used when referencing the reason in the API and Apex.

All Apex sharing reason names have the following format:
MyReasonName__c

Apex sharing reasons can be referenced programmatically as follows:

Schema.CustomObject__Share.rowCause.SharingReason__c

For example, an Apex sharing reason called Recruiter for an object called Job can be referenced as follows:

Schema.Job__Share.rowCause.Recruiter__c

So, sharing reason must be used which you have defined and that's why it takes API name. It always hold String value.

Just to test out... I created a sharing reason for a test object and ran the following line in Developer Console:

System.debug(Schema.MyObj__Share.rowCause.MyCause__c instanceof String);

I got back the error Operation instanceof is always true since an instance of String is always an instance of String. So that tells me it returns a String and not some special type.

However if you want to validate that it's a proper RowCause, you can do:

List<Schema.PicklistEntry> rowCauses = MyObj__Share.rowCause.getDescribe().getPicklistValues();

The results you get back will include all the custom row causes and the standard allowable ones too.