The rise of urban studies in Lebanon: local critical engagements and globalisation of academic practices -- The emergence and the structuration of urban studies constitutes one of the most striking change in the social sciences in Lebanon since the end of the civil war. This relates to the social and political context, that of reconstruction and urban modernisation in the last 30 years. But it is also linked to the changes affecting the academia and in particular its international insertion. Therefore, it is interesting to examine urban studies in Lebanon in a comparative perspective. On the one side, I take stock of the acknowledged specificities of urban studies, in particular the tension between academic structuration and links with policies. On the other side, it is necessary to account for the global reshuffling of this field, with the rise of questions stemming from Southern cities. This text starts by proposing an analytical framework pour studying urban studies in a country of the South; then it develops three main findings. First, the emergence of urban studies in Lebanon directly accompanied the mobilisations of intellectuals and scholars against the government’s urban policies of reconstruction and planning. Second, the structuration of urban studies is occurring foremost in the academic sphere of urban planning, which is located inside the faculties of architecture. These places have access to uneven resources to access the international debates and the American University of Beirut stands out from this point of view. The state and local public actors played a minor role in the structuring of urban studies but there are various forms of coproduction of urban data and knowledge that associates academics, consultants and administrations. The rise of urban studies also strongly results from the development urban activism, particularly in the recent years. This has led to the adoption of new practices of coproduction of knowledge with the residents, as well as of now forms of dissemination to the public. The framework of “translational urban praxis” Susann Parnell and Edgar Pieterse proposed for South Africa helps to understand these new practices of translation between different social groups and publics.