“Which methods are respectable?” Quantitative versus textual interpretation

Suppose a discipline strongly favors quantitative research.

Researchers may be told:

“A convincing study should have measurable variables and statistical tests.”

Then someone proposes:

“I will analyze historical speeches through close textual interpretation.”

The second researcher may have difficulty getting the work accepted because the dominant methodological culture considers quantitative analysis more rigorous.

Conversely, the opposite can happen.

A humanities discipline may strongly value:

• textual interpretation;
• archival analysis;
• discourse analysis;

and consider a purely statistical analysis insufficiently attentive to historical meaning.

So the question:

Which methods are respectable?

means:

Which methods does the academic community regard as legitimate, rigorous and appropriate for producing knowledge?

Again, this doesn't mean the preferred method is necessarily objectively superior.

It means methodological preferences themselves can become part of the institutional structure of a discipline.