Introducing the edited volume entitled ‘Depoliticising Humanitarian Action’, this chapter maps out why the relationship between humanitarianism and politics has been fraught since long and increasingly so today. It details the historically divided and further varying humanitarian approaches towards politics; the political complexification of the contexts of humanitarian intervention, including (global) depoliticisation trends and the rise of authoritarian practices; and the intensifying calls to shift financial and decision-making power towards local actors. Across three sections, academic chapters and practitioner interventions, the introduced book pulls together a number of different disciplinary positions and empirical evidence to combine views from above and from below. The aim is to first show how depoliticisation is a powerful technique and rationality for a so-called neutral humanitarianism to reproduce power and hegemony. The second section highlights the dilemmas present in operationalising humanitarian action by negotiating the space between patronising power to function but not enough to let it take control. Third, the book engages with the multiple ways in which a depoliticised approach is being resisted and contested by people living and working in crisis contexts in everyday life.