SCA supports research on race, racism, and colonization through a range of print material and archival collections. These include a growing number of contemporary periodicals and zines focused on and produced by equity deserving communities both re-claiming and celebrating cultural practices prohibited or lost during colonization.

The department holds records that reflect multiple perspectives on the advancement and impact of colonialism. Examples include the journals and other records of Colin Rankin and Donald McKay, the photograph album of Canadian and British missionaries in India, five land grants issued by the Department of Indian Affairs bestowing lands formerly promised to the Ojibwe and Odawa of Manitoulin Island, and a variety of Indigenous publications written by and about First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples, groups and associations. Additionally, the department holds the research and publications of Waterloo’s Sally Weaver, an anthropologist whose work focused on land rights and sovereignty for Indigenous peoples in Canada and Australia.

Further of note are editions of _Black News_, a Brooklyn-based publication from the 1970s documenting the experiences of Black communities at a critical moment in the history of the Civil Rights Movement, and Camilla Young's photograph album, documenting the upbringing and day-to-day life of an African-American woman from New Jersey between the mid-1940s to the 1980s. The department also houses a Black Experience Collection of pulp fiction titles, and a selection of Black Oral Histories with students, faculty and staff connected to the University of Waterloo.