I could not imagine that fieldwork conditions are really that though, that your're not able to write on a table without dust. While travelling you can protect your laptop against crushes and dust. Only useful in humid regions, I would think.

And, as the example of Corinne shows, the danger that it gets stolen is far higher -> so try to buy a cheap one or two ;-)

But where are the real fieldworkers?

I agree with warauduati, it depends entirely on the situation. But in most cases it is really not necessary to have your laptop with you. Could be quite disruptive. Just as using ordinary notebooks in the presence of the people amongst whom you are doing research, which changes the situation and the answers you'll get.
Besides, the prolonged use of laptops changes a lot of your way of memorising, writing etc. I am right now experiencing just that, after my laptop was stolen two weeks ago. The good point about it is that I can now much better understand your fascination with computers and their anthropology, the internet included. Your relation to texts and notes is profoundly different when you can trust in and rely on the data you have on your hard disk, I suppose. The advantage of working without computers however is really that you learn again how vital it is to be able to memorise and present an extended coherent argument (without being able to google, to copy and paste etc).

If I may also add my mustard to it... In my view, notebooks can be paramount working tools during fieldwork. But, as you all stated before, showing up with it is not always adequate or even necessary for successful fieldwork. Yes, a sensitive use of such instruments is certainly advisable (and, please, who would ever make use of a notebook while interviewing someone?!). I wouldn’t make it a fast rule, though, that the appearance of a notebook in the ‘field’ widens the disparities between the researcher and the ‘locals’. In most cases the former is stigmatised as the ‘rich guy’ anyway, and for good reasons. On this level, the ‘being one of them’ notion is a mere illusion. And if it came to suspecting the fieldworker of storing ‘secret’ notes in his PC, then one would have to question some very central issues of his presence. The use of an ordinary notebook would give rise to similar doubts – the latter being about the fieldworker’s integrity, his personality and his being accepted in his ‘field’, and less about his technological equipment. Engaging in this further, I would like to play down the assumed problem of (any kind of) note-taking ‘at work’, meaning that it destroys the ‘authentic’ fieldwork setting and the people’s genuine discourses (ok, none of you were going that far). - One thing’s for sure: your memory is highly needed in the field, no matter how well/oddly equipped you are.

In Ghana I spent quite some time working in the archives of a chief’s palace. On my first day there, the old archivist (82 years of age) impatiently asked me why I hadn’t brought any computer with me: Professor XY had also come with one, and that’s how serious fieldwork was to be done. The next day I brought my notebook (a stone age model) to the palace. Admittedly this gave the archivist the feeling of being very important (which he was, definitely). I think that using ‘academic technology’ as part of some kind of working routine also made people accept (or assume…) that I was a serious fieldwork student.

Should these African kids be prohibited from being tempted by the sight of this neo-imperialistic prestige object…?