Generally speaking, the opposite of universality is particularity, which means
The quality of being individual.
In your example, it reads:
The author argues that the text does not appeal to universality but, on the contrary, to the particularity of the place/culture.
If you really want to emphasize the "non-translatability" aspect, you might go with haecceity (/hek-SAY-ih-TEE/), which means:
The property of being a unique and individual thing.
It comes from the Latin word for thisness and strongly connotes a thing's (almost metaphysical) uniqueness.
In your example it reads:
Answer from DyingIsFun on Stack ExchangeThe author argues that the text does not appeal to universality but, on the contrary, to the haecceity of the place/culture.
Generally speaking, the opposite of universality is particularity, which means
The quality of being individual.
In your example, it reads:
The author argues that the text does not appeal to universality but, on the contrary, to the particularity of the place/culture.
If you really want to emphasize the "non-translatability" aspect, you might go with haecceity (/hek-SAY-ih-TEE/), which means:
The property of being a unique and individual thing.
It comes from the Latin word for thisness and strongly connotes a thing's (almost metaphysical) uniqueness.
In your example it reads:
The author argues that the text does not appeal to universality but, on the contrary, to the haecceity of the place/culture.
I would go with specificity. An alternative is some form of the word context.
Here's a well-cited academic paper that uses universality and specificity in its title, for instance.
In your example,
The author argues that the text does not appeal to universality but, on the contrary, to specificity.
If this is what you're looking for, I'd also suggest adding what the text specifically applies to.