In parallel to the expansion of the global humanitarian system, there has been a general rise of humanitarianism as field of study. Anthropology is arguably the most established discipline with a focus on humanitarianism, though the discipline has predominantly concerned itself with how people - recipients, practitioners, decision makers and donors - interact with the discourses, narratives, structures, institutions and rules of humanitarianism. A major challenge is the discipline's strong focus on participant observation, which needs to be multi-sited to enable the study of a global phenomenon. The use of ethnographic methodologies creates challenges as well as possibilities, but what are they and how do they impact on the findings of the research?