Ayşegül Savaş's The Anthropologists follows expatriate couple Manu and Asya as they navigate the complexities of creating a home and identity in a foreign city. Both scholarship students who met at university, they now live together with Manu working at a nonprofit and Asya pursuing documentary filmmaking. The novel unfolds through their daily experiences of displacement, relationship building, and the ongoing search for belonging.

The central plot thread revolves around Manu and Asya's prolonged apartment hunt. They regularly visit potential homes but consistently find themselves dissatisfied, their search criteria revealing deeper anxieties about belonging. They specifically seek a space that could accommodate extended family visits—a requirement that highlights their desire to bridge the gap between their adopted city and their origins, where family visits typically last months rather than days.

Their current small apartment forces them to limit family stays to brief periods, creating a source of ongoing tension between their expatriate lifestyle and their cultural expectations. This housing search becomes a metaphor for their broader struggle to establish roots in a place that remains perpetually foreign.

The couple's primary social connection is Ravi, a mysterious friend they met shortly after moving to the city. Ravi works as a tutor but passionately collects antiques, suggesting someone seeking to ground himself in his adopted culture's material history. The three spend considerable time together, though their friendship operates at a comfortable but somewhat superficial level.

Asya's only local friend is Lena, whom she met at an expatriate party despite Lena being a native of the city. Initially hopeful that Lena would introduce her to a broader social circle, Asya discovers that after a year, Lena remains her sole local connection. The friendship is complicated by Lena's own performative relationship with the city—she is revealed to be from the suburbs, desperately trying to establish her urban authenticity.

Asya receives grant funding to create a documentary about the local park where she, Manu, and Ravi spend leisurely time together. This project becomes central to her identity as an artist and her relationship with her adopted environment. However, the documentary concept confuses both her grandmother and father, who fail to understand why she would focus on something as mundane as a park rather than more obviously significant subjects.

The documentary serves multiple functions: it positions Asya as both observer and participant in her community, provides excerpts that punctuate the narrative, and represents her attempt to find meaning in the everyday spaces of her expatriate life.

The novel explores intergenerational relationships through visits from both sets of parents. Asya's father's visit reveals cultural disconnection when he wants to see tourist attractions while she prefers showing him her local neighborhood. His generous but financially burdensome cash gift demonstrates the sacrifices families make for expatriate children while highlighting the emotional complexities of maintaining relationships across cultural boundaries.

Manu's parents' visit creates different tensions. They reject the couple's attempts at hospitality—dismissing cloth napkins and candles as wasteful decadence—while pressing them about having children. These visits expose the ongoing negotiation between the couple's adopted lifestyle and their families' expectations.

A significant family crisis emerges when Manu's brother enrolls his children in religious school. Manu's opposition stems from educational concerns, but his deeper pain comes from realizing he was unaware of his brother's financial struggles and the community support that religious institutions provided during difficult times.

Manu and Asya develop a cherished weekly tradition of dining with Tereza, an elderly neighbor with dementia who loves poetry and art. This relationship provides genuine intergenerational connection that transcends cultural boundaries. However, Tereza's condition gradually deteriorates, leading to concerning incidents like leaving her door unlocked and eventually collapsing in her kitchen.

The couple's relationship with Tereza becomes complicated by her daughter's medical approach to her mother's condition, which conflicts with Manu and Asya's more humanistic perspective that emphasizes dignity and continuity of identity.

The novel's climax involves several converging changes. Manu and Asya successfully secure a loan and purchase their first home together, representing a significant step toward permanent residency. However, this achievement is overshadowed by Ravi's sudden announcement that he has accepted a job in the countryside and will move there with Sara, a visiting friend who has become romantically involved with him.

Ravi's departure devastates Manu and Asya, who feel abandoned by their primary social anchor. The situation is further complicated by Lena's romantic interest in Ravi, which he has rebuffed, and the secrets surrounding his relationship with Sara that Asya must navigate.

Simultaneously, Asya's grandmother requires surgery, creating a medical crisis that highlights the limitations of geographical distance in providing family care. Despite Asya's offers to return home, her mother insists they can handle the situation independently, leaving Asya feeling helpless and excluded from crucial family moments.

The novel concludes with Manu and Asya moving into their new apartment while adjusting to Ravi's absence and Tereza's hospitalization. They combat the unfamiliarity of their new space by reciting their shared list of beloved things—a ritual that transforms abstract values into concrete practices for creating home.

The ending suggests both the resilience and fragility of expatriate existence: the ability to create meaning in new circumstances coupled with the recognition that such constructions remain fundamentally provisional and dependent on ongoing mutual commitment.