The Angry Hamburger and the Language of Change

The Angry Hamburger and the Language of Change

As I sit here on a small island close to Bali at a dive resort grounded in community development, the sun is shining over the water, the reflection of the mangroves looking back at me. This is not the only reflection in my mind, right now.

I find myself pondering social mobility, growth, privilege, my journey into community-led change, the speed and professionalisation in place-based change, the new and emergent language being used, a recent workshop in Wagga Wagga and the Angry Hamburger. More on that later…

My journey into community work and community-led place-based change started for me in the early 2000’s, back when I had hair!!! After a period of homelessness moving from hostel to hostel I found myself living in social housing in inner city Leeds in the UK, in what was described as one of the deprived communities in England. A wonderful way to label community, we were in fact abundant.

It’s fair to say life at the time was complex, I now know shaped by lived experience of my early years, I was far from self-actualisation.

It is during this time I started to notice things I had never noticed before, we had many pubs, take aways and off-licences (bottle shops for my fellow Aussies) but nowhere to buy fruit and vegetables in my neighbourhood.

I started to connect with community members, professionals, community groups and networks and have conversations around what a different future would look like, and I’m not the only person that noticed, some great work took place in partnership with community NHS Health Improvement Specialists. But that’s not so much a story for today.

I now know what drew me to have these conversations and to explore ways to create change, when to be honest life was a daily struggle. It was my gifts of the heart (Gifts I can offer my community, Participatory Community Building Guidebook), it was my passion for equity.

This was certainly not the case for our community, we were in fact a food desert. During this time a community-led organisation was created to tackle issues around food access, thanks to the professionals, community groups/networks, government and non-government organisations walking alongside community, building my personal capability, capacity and self-belief.

It is clear to me now that these people cared and were intentional in noticing when situations, environments made me feel uncomfortable and most importantly were intentional with the language used when in a room with me, all forms of communication and the documents they were creating. Had they not done this, the imposter syndrome would have hit hard, and I would not be sat writing this today, I would have run a mile.

Fast forward to 2025, the hair has long gone its chilly outside and the winter sun is shining down in regional New South Wales. I’m sharing space with 25 people from across local government and communities sector, co-facilitating a Participatory Community Building workshop – this is where the Angry Hamburger comes in.

The Angry Hamburger, given a nick name by a previous community workshop participant long before my time with the Jeder Institute talks to systems of leadership.

Now back to the Wagga Wagga workshop, we were unpacking what the Angry Hamburger means for community-led change and development and the idea for this blog was born.

Let’s imagine the top of the bun relates to government and agencies and the fact systems of leadership tend to be top down, reaching down into communities to shape, policy, projects, programs and initiatives. Decision making is vertical and tends to be top down and siloed.

We know this is not the same for community, community leadership is non-linear, horizontal and as Dr Who would say wibbly wobbly. So let’s say this is the bottom bun of the Angry Hamburger. Here we have two systems of leadership that are inherently different, in fact I’m not sure you could get more different.

How do we then bridge the space in the middle, this space of opportunity or as one of the Wagga Wagga Participants, Abe said ‘create the possibility patty’.

There are many ways to do this, in this blog we are going to touch on one key point, language, language matters. We are seeing an increased professionalisation of place-based change globally with further professionalisation of language and jargon used and in fact some documents that do not even reference community development, which is what place-based change and community-led systems change is all about in essence.

While this language professionalises the work, talking in language that is persuasive for decision makers in the top of the bun, operating from a vertical leadership it is disempowering and engaging for everyday Joe.

Had I seen and heard the language being used in today’s meetings, reports and strategies back when I had hair and starting my joumey, the inner saboteur would have taken hold and I’d have been glancing back at the space of possibility far behind me never to be seen again.

This led me to research language currently being used, in public facing reports and strategies relating to place-based change:

We know from ABS and OECD the average reading age for an Australian is 15 and for those in communities similar to where my journey began it is 12-13 years old.

Now I’m sat here pondering, is the professionalisation of place-based, community-led change and the language being used going to harm the very agenda for change, we are trying to raise up and champion.

If we are using the language that is emerging, are we truly placing community at the centre — or are we leaving it behind?