ABSTRACT
This chapter explores my journey writing fieldnotes during a yearlong ethnographic case study at a multigenerational Korean ethnic church in Canada. I ask, ‘What constitutes fieldnote data?’ and ‘Can data and analysis be separated?’ Through examining excerpts from my fieldnotes, I show how fieldnotes are an imbricated space where my observations, interpretation, and analyses are closely intertwined, and how adding layers of writing enabled me to become more reflexive. I demonstrate how technological devices assisted my fieldnote practice, and how I negotiated my language choice while producing handwritten and typed fieldnotes in Korean and English. I showcase how I used my fieldnotes as a foundation for archiving and analyzing data from multiple sources, enabling me to analyze participants’ accounts and practices more holistically and to describe institutional cultures and classroom interactions.
