Personhood is conditioned by accumulated sedimentations, not by single defining moments.

Evidence

The original Gramscian idea of an ‘inventory of traces’ presumes that there is a personality, a cultural location, upon which those traces are inscribed; it presumes rhat there are other ‘traces’ into which these traces are Woven, so that rhe personality that emerges our of this weave, this overlap, is conditioned not by a specific set of traces but by the whole of irs history. … What this original Gramscian idea could mean, for example, is that the l,talian cultural formation cannot be read back from fascism or the Risorgimento or even the failure of the Reformationhence the unfinished character of the Italian Renaissance; that it would have to be traced all the way back, historically, to the very moment of the ascendancy of the High Church and of High Latin as the language of that Church, as well as from the histories of subordinations following thereafter; in other words, histories, and therefore subjectivities, are constituted not by what Gramsci calls ‘moments’ but by the always-accumulating processes of sedimentation and accretion. … In relation to India, then, this original Gramscian formulation would mean, at the very least, that colonialism was doubtless a key ‘moment’ - even, in some specific areas, a decisive ‘moment’ - bur the history of sedimentations which constitutes the Indian cultural formation includes much besides colonialism per se. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 701

Categorization

• XREF: Gramsci’s ‘inventory of traces’ as grounding for Spivak’s strategic essentialism question — the original formulation presupposes a fuller self beneath any identity claim, which contextualizes why ironic essentialism presumes a position it can return from. — connects to: The human is a historical point of arrival, not a given starting point. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1268; Subjectivity is formed not by single moments but by accumulated historical sedimentation — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 307
• DEFINE: Defines Gramsci’s ‘inventory of traces’ in contrast to the colonial-discourse narrowing that later theory performed on it.

Broader Connections

• Subjectivity is formed not by single moments but by accumulated historical sedimentation #corroborates (1.00) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 307
• The human is a historical point of arrival, not a given starting point. #expands (0.75) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1268